Single vs Dual partition

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Single vs Dual partition

Minnesota - Viking

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December 6, 2010 at 1:05 pm

#227862

Palnninga new SQL 2208 box. Current DB size is 2 Gigs, the max i would project its growth to be 20 gigs. Moderate transactions on the server. Not a OLTP.
I was wondering what should be the partition type ?
I have a 146 gig hard drive on a RAID 1. Its a single partition (C:\)
I was wondering why not i have two partitions.
C:\100 Gigs and
D:\46 Gigs
Is it not meaningful to keep DBs on a seperate partition than OS?
By da way it is runninga Windows Server 2008 Edition.
Thanks
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Robert Klimes SSCoach Points: 17865 More actions · Answer 1

Splitting a single drive to multiple partitions does not help the performance of a database. What you would want is to have a separate physical drive(s). More spindles = better performance.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc966534.aspx

Bob
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Gail Shaw SSC Guru Points: 1004504 More actions · Answer 2

allin1 (12/6/2010)
Is it not meaningful to keep DBs on a seperate partition than OS?

No it's meaningful to keep DBs on separate drive to OS. Separate physical drive. With a single RAID 1 array you're really limiting the IO throughput of that server. I hope the DBs won't be too busy.

p.s. I assume you mean two 146GB drives in a RAID 1 config?

Gail Shaw
Microsoft Certified Master: SQL Server, MVP, M.Sc (Comp Sci)
SQL In The Wild: Discussions on DB performance with occasional diversions into recoverability

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Minnesota - Viking Hall of Fame Points: 3469 More actions · Answer 3

Thank you Robert for the useful link.

Thanks Gail.

Yes it is two seperate 146 Gigs on a RAID1.

So as of my undertsanding

a 146 Gig on a RAID 1 --> for OS and

another 146 Gig on another RAID 1 --> for the DB

is this the best config ?

assuming that DB is 20 Gig in size is not a busy database.

If it were a very busy DB I would add another 146 Gig on another RAID 1 exclusive for Tx Logs right ?

I know i am asking too many questions, so u can answer only if u feel like.

What is the difference between arranging

3 146 Gig seperate physical drives on a RAID 1 and

3 146 Gig Sep physical drives, EACH on to a SEPERATE RAID 1 array.

Thanks

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Robert Klimes SSCoach Points: 17865 More actions · Answer 4

a 146 Gig on a RAID 1 --> for OS and
another 146 Gig on another RAID 1 --> for the DB

This would be a better setup although this would require 4 physical disks.

If I understand correctly, you only have two physical disks so most like likely you would want to keep it as one RAID 1 array because if you split them you would not have any disk redundancy would lose data if disk failed.

If it were a very busy DB I would add another 146 Gig on another RAID 1 exclusive for Tx Logs right ?

If you were to add a third drive then you can setup the array as RAID 5 which would give you protection via parity and also give you the added performance of multiple spindles. It would still be one volume.

What is the difference between arranging
3 146 Gig seperate physical drives on a RAID 1 and
3 146 Gig Sep physical drives, EACH on to a SEPERATE RAID 1 array.

I do not think you can put 3 drives into RAID 1 (mirroring). If you mean RAID 0 (striping), then the difference is: three drives striped would increase performance as you can do concurrent reads and writes but all data would be lost if one drive failed.

here is a link the wiki on RAID.

Bob
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