May 11, 2007 at 2:08 pm
I am going to be installing SQL Srvr 2000 soon and the databases are to reside on a new SAN we are getting from Dell. Can I install the SQL Srvr on the server and then attach to the SAN to install the databases or what? Anybody have any good ideas?
Hope this is the right place to put this.
Thanks.
May 11, 2007 at 3:02 pm
Glenn,
Yes, you can install SQL Server on the server and use the SAN storage for housing your database files. You will want to make sure that whoever is responsible for carving out your storage space on the SAN understands that you do NOT want to share disks/spindles with any other resource. They may tell you that they've created you your own LUN for your databases, but you want to be sure that it is separate all of the way down to the physical disks. Sharing physical disks can be detrimental to database server performance. If you can spare the space, I also suggest that you place the MDF, LDF, and TempDB all on separate disks. Then of course, there is RAID level. Shoot for RAID 10 for your data files and RAID 10 or RAID 1 for your transaction logs. There is ample information here on SSC regarding RAID levels and SAN storage, do a search and read up on both topics.
May 13, 2007 at 11:19 pm
I agree with everything that John said, but I just want to add one bit. I prefer to simply use RAID 10 for everything because it requires less planning if I don't have to decidehow much of my SAN should be RAID 10 and how much should be RAID 1. It also makes it much simpler if it turns out that my plan was not sufficient and I need to change what percentage belongs to which group.
May 14, 2007 at 7:43 am
I'd agree as well, but really caution you to be sure your disks are your disks. I've had other vendors really try to build a couple large arrays and then logically divide them up.
May 14, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Before you start installing SQL Server your SAN should be configured & your OS will be able to see Drive's. try to get information about how SAN LUN's are configured in reference to READ & WRITE ratio(default ratio is 90%READ-10%WRITE), try to get information about if any Zonning done on Fibre switch or your SAN Engineer as done LUN provisioning. you atleast need to have 2 HBA on your SQL Server for redundant. but before i talk about HBA's, what disk's are used on SAN are they iSCSI or Fibre. performance varies. to configured RAID 10 or 1 or 5 is not problem but very important part is to know what is controller cache size & how many controller resides on each disk in SAN. especially when you have SAN as a backend for SQL Server. it is very important to know how SAN is configured. if it is not correctly configured then you will have performance issue where you will be working on SQL Server side but problem resides on SAN. performance counter is not helpfull in SAN, each SAN vendors uses it on Enterprise Application for e.g. EMC uses Enterprise Control Center application for monitoring, configuring etc. you can talk to your Admin's to see if they can provide you SAN logs which will help you to identify if there is any kind of issue between SQL Server & SAN. try to get bigger picture of SAN when you are going to use for SQL Server.
i am sorry i was not that helpful.
May 15, 2007 at 7:28 am
Another key thing to do is...once you have installed SQL Server on your server, you should move tempdb to the SAN array.
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