June 19, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Hi guys over the next weekend I am going to be doing a database move between servers. The database size is around 60GB uncompressed. Here are the server specs:
-2x Quad Core E5405
-4x 4GB DDR3 Kits (16GB Total)
-5x 300GB 15KRPM HDDs
-Running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition
-Microsoft SQL 2005 Standard Edition
I need to prepare a plan on how I’m going to configure the database for the best performance. I was thinking of splitting database and the log file onto separate HDDs, and just hoping to get some ideas on the best set ups.
Many Thanks
June 20, 2008 at 7:55 am
It depends on what you need in the way of redundancy ... if you don't need to use RAID then you have several options, if you do then 5 drives is very limiting - you can only have a maximum of 2 arrays.
June 20, 2008 at 9:26 am
If you can swing getting one more HDD into the server, you could split to 3 RAID-1 arrays, partition one of them for OS and backups (drives C and D), one for data files (E) and one for log files (F). If not, then 1 drive for OS and backups, and 2 RAID-1 arrays for for data and log files might work, but it puts you at risk of losing the OS drive (small probability), which would bring down the whole server.
There are other options, but splitting data files and log files onto separate drive arrays is almost always a good idea. I had an ideal set up at one time, with OS and backups on one array (2 partitions), data on another, log files on another, tempdb on another, and certain heavy-use covering indexes on yet another. Yeah, that's a lot of drives, but it made those databases fly! (Before that set-up, the whole thing was a single RAID-5 array with 1 partition and everything on it. All 10 drives. The change got a 30% increase in speed on some of the databases and a 100% increase on the main database.) Oh, and that was on multiple RAID controllers, so lots of IO bandwidth.
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June 20, 2008 at 10:18 am
2 RAID 1, keep a spare spinning in there. OS, data on one, Logs on the other.
Be nice to get 2 smaller drives for a small log array and go R10 on the data files.
June 20, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Thanks for your advise guys
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