Avg. Disk Sec/Read and Avg. Disk Sec/Write are the values you're looking for.

However, to see how your disk is performing, it's usually more useful to look at % Disk Time...

Nowadays we use Operations Manager to monitor the servers and it will send out all kinds of email & IM's when a server goes offline. We also have Idera's Diagnostic...

Since no one has suggested any books, I'll toss a couple out there. First off, for T-SQL, I'd suggest Itzik Ben-Gan's "SQL Server 2008 T-SQL Fundamentals." Great place to start....

If the PK consists of two columns, the FK must as well. You couldn't do it exactly as you've defined. You'd also need a ParentArea column.

If the ID column is...

The Advisor can catch some of the low hanging fruit that might need tuning, but I wouldn't hang my hat on its results, positive or negative. I've seen it suggest...

I didn't know PKD was buried in Colorado. I figured it was in California. He spent so much of his life there. Now I'm curious...

Found this:

http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=1490

and this:

http://www.philipkdick.com/aa_g-other-headstone.html

GilaMonster (7/13/2009)

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For that matter, anyone heard from Grant? I think...

Phil,

Sorry I didn't respond to this sooner. I've been away (enjoying SUMMER as opposed to what's going on in New England these days). I always knew you were more than...

Oh, no. You don't want to capture it to the graph. You need to set up a counter log to capture the data to a file over time. I've got...

It's not that complicated. Take a moment in time, say now, measure your production system for a period of time, I usually try for 24 hours and do it on...

John Sansom (7/1/2009)

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The majority of our environments are clustered enabling us to easily rollout monthly patching runs without interruption to service.

Grant, an “Annual Power Down” sounds like some sort of...

Are you doing a complete refresh of the data every time? If so, you might want to consider getting an incremental process in place.

Structurally, another way to speed this up...

Pretty much, you have to have a valid backup, the privileges on the server, and enough space to support the backup. That's about it. What were you looking for?

Minimum once a year during our annual power down, but in general we try to keep them up as long as possible. In practice, it's probably 2-3 times a year...

GSquared (7/1/2009)

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Grant Fritchey (6/30/2009)

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GSquared (6/30/2009)

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GilaMonster (6/30/2009)

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GSquared (6/30/2009)

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No more waiting...