March 23, 2010 at 11:02 am
I am in the process of setting up my new SQL Server and am unsure what to select for the Raid Configuration. I have the options of Raid 6, 5, 1+0 or 0. I have 4 300gb drives. This is a 64-bit server running Windows Server 2008 and will run SQL Server 2008. There are about 50 users and my current db (the one that will move to this server) is about 2.5GB. The most important concern for us is performance. Thank you in advance for your help!!!
March 24, 2010 at 8:36 am
Since you are talking 2008 you should have posted in a 2008 forum. Are those 4 drives going to hold everything (OS, Data, Logs)? What are you projecting for database size?
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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March 24, 2010 at 8:54 am
I apologize for posting in the incorrect forum. Should I move my question or repost??? Yes, these drives will hold everything, OS, log files and DB's but no other applications. The current server has several dbs (not all of them will be moved as many are obsolete) and they are using a total of 51gb (including backups, log files, etc). I don't forsee the ones that I move ever exceeding that.
March 24, 2010 at 9:05 am
After doing some research, I am leaning toward the following configuration...
C: - 100gb for the OS – Raid 10
D: - ~160 GB for the log files and misc software (backup exec, etc) – Raid 10
E: - 300gb for the SQL Data files – Raid 10
C & D would be separate partitions on the same physical drive and E would be separate physical drive.
March 24, 2010 at 9:09 am
Nah, don't worry about the location. It just means that you might get different answers because things change from version to version. Not as big a deal when talking hardware though.
Typical recommendations are to have different arrays for OS, data, logs, backups, and tempdb, but to be honest most implementations don't need all that for performance.
I would recommend you find a way to do your backups onto a separate array than your data and log files. I'm not a storage expert by any means which is why I'm not giving you specific raid recommendations.
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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March 24, 2010 at 9:12 am
I don't think you gain any benefit from having 2 partitions on the same array. If you are using pre-WIndows 2008 you should make sure you have your partitions aligned correctly
Jack Corbett
Consultant - Straight Path Solutions
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March 24, 2010 at 9:19 am
Thank you for your help!!! Actually, the backups are going to be on a NAS device as we do several-daily, monthly and archival (long story...I'm still trying to find them all :)) The server is Windows Server 2008 Std SP1. Since it is brand new, I still have the option of extending the logical drive where the OS is located to 300gb, putting the log files there and using the other drive for data files. Would that work???
April 2, 2010 at 4:22 am
Personally, I lean away from sharing the OS drive with anything. However, with the OS sharing a drive with log files, you run the risk of the logs growing unexpectedly and filling up the drive if you aren't careful (we have a bit large and heavily updated databases). It can be a very bad thing to have your OS drive fill up because depending on the situation. If I were to have a machine with only two local drives, I would place the OS and data files on C with logs on the other. Unless it's a read only db, you are going to get a fair amount of disk IO on your logs, which could slow performance if you have to share with he OS. But, to your question, I ideally try to achieve the following goals in this order (though depending on your situation, you might move these around):
1) get log files on their own set of spindles
2) get data files on their own set of spindles
3) get tempdb on it's own set of spindles
April 8, 2010 at 10:42 am
Having a separate physical disk for OS, Data, Logs and Backups make sense.
But a separate disk for tempdb seems like overkill..
I suppose it depends on what you are doing with SQL SERVER and with your new W2K8 machine.Does the W2k8 server serve any other purpose (Domain Controller etc.?) apart from hosting SQL.
another option would be to install SQL SERVER on the same partition as the OS and keep the data files on a separate Disk.
RAID 1+0 seems like a good choice.
April 8, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Thank you for all of the information. The SQL Server is only going to be used for SQL so I ended up putting the OS and the SQL install on one drive, log files on a separate partition and all of my SQL data files on another physical drive. So far it seems to be working fine but I'm still testing. Went with raid 1+0 for all as I have plenty of disk space.
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