Hardware Configuration using SSD

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Hardware Configuration using SSD

DBA by default

Mr or Mrs. 500

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July 9, 2013 at 9:38 am

#280115

We are in the process of ordering a new server and the hardware guys are asking about how we need to setup the arrays / drives. We are moving to Server 2012 and installing SQL 2008 R2. If we are using Solid State Drives do you get better performance having multiple arrays each with their own logical drive or is the performance about the same using one RAID10 array and split that into logical drives for the OS, data logs, etc? Everything I have found says to split it on physical drives, but most are referring to platter drives and not solid state. So if anyone can give some insight on the best setup using SSD that would be great.
Thanks,
Tracie

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Elliott Whitlow SSC Guru Points: 102402 More actions · Answer 1

Keep in mind I have only a bit of experience with SSDs. But my understanding and experience is that random access and sequential access are virtually the same on an SSD because we don't have to even consider waiting for the platter to come around. Depending on how many drives you are working with there is usually some benefit to having more channels of access to the drives. If we are only talking about 4 drives then I would probably just break it down to logical drives.

I'd google: sql ssd best practices

And this URL looks promising: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/2011/06/08/notes-from-solid-state-for-sql-server-with-wes-brown-from-today-s-idera-broadcast-ssd-best-practices-for-database-servers/[/url]

CEWII

DBA by default Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 522 More actions · Answer 2

One setup suggested is on RAID10 array with 10 drives and one RAID1 with 2 drives for the log files. The second suggested setup is Array0 RAID1 with 2 drives for OS. Array1 RAID10 4 drives data files. Array2 RAID10 4 drives log files. Array3 RAID10 4 disks tempdb and local backups.

Tracie

DBA by default Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 522 More actions · Answer 3

Elliott Whitlow (7/9/2013)
Keep in mind I have only a bit of experience with SSDs. But my understanding and experience is that random access and sequential access are virtually the same on an SSD because we don't have to even consider waiting for the platter to come around. Depending on how many drives you are working with there is usually some benefit to having more channels of access to the drives. If we are only talking about 4 drives then I would probably just break it down to logical drives.
I'd google: sql ssd best practices
And this URL looks promising: http://www.sqlservercentral.com/blogs/hugo/2011/06/08/notes-from-solid-state-for-sql-server-with-wes-brown-from-today-s-idera-broadcast-ssd-best-practices-for-database-servers/[/url]
CEWII

Thanks for the information, I will pass it on and check out the link.

Tracie

Elliott Whitlow SSC Guru Points: 102402 More actions · Answer 4

My recommendation is to never do backups locally, always to a file server.

My rational for this is that it removes a single server failure as a mechanism of data loss. If you lose the drives you have lost not only the data but also the backups.

As well as SSD storage is still pretty expensive and I'd rather use the space for databases..

CEWII