When I manage a SQL Server instance, I always make an extra effort to optimize the performance of TEMPDB, so I decided to do a poll to see if other DBAs did the same.

When the results came in, I was a little surprised, as about 91% of those who responded to the poll said that they do take steps to optimize TEMPDB. When you look at the results, you can see that about 9% of the respondents said that they did not take any action to boost the performance of TEMPDB.

The remaining 91% of the respondents had the option to select one or more TEMPDB tuning options. Of the options they selected, three of the options were very close in the number of responses (the top three in the graph), with only the use of solid state storage coming in last. Because the top three options are so close, I am guessing that most of the people who responded to the poll probably perform all three, which is something that I do myself.

Of course, there are many other things you can do to help optimize TEMPDB, the ones listed here are only the tip of the iceberg. If you are one of those DBAs who still haven’t taken any action to optimize TEMPDB on your SQL Servers, you might want to download my presentation (a PDF file) on “How to Optimize TEMPDB Performance”.