Solid State Disks and SQL Server

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Solid State Disks and SQL Server

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DenisT SSC-Addicted Points: 493 More actions · Answer 1

Hi Wesley,

Thank you for the info! I understand that it has been a while since you wrote this article but I hope you could answer my questions.

My company just bought ioDrive 2.0 and I've been playing with it.

You wrote:

"... Also, having to convert all my databases from a 512 byte block to a 4KB block is a road block. There is no other way to do this other than copy all the data to a new database that is created on the new 4KB sector size. ..."

Does it mean that a simple restore should do the job? The backup is taken on a drive that is formatted with 512 byte sectors. If I format ioDrive 2.0 to 4K sectors and restore the backup on it, it should be just fine, right?

Thanks,

Denis

iposner Ten Centuries Points: 1161 More actions · Answer 2

Backup the database elsewhere, reforat the drive with 4096 sector size and restore. Or copy everything off, reformat and copy back on.

Wesley Brown SSChampion Points: 12045 More actions · Answer 3

You can go down sector sizes but you can't go up.

If your storage is a 4k sector you cannot restore a database that is a 512 byte sector to it.

You must create a new database and move all your data from the old database to the new database.

SQL Server can restore or attach a database formatted with a larger sector size onto smaller, evenly divisible physical sectors. This is possible because the log write uses the original formatted size (the larger size of the two). SQL Server may use a bit more log space in this configuration, but the writes to the log are larger than the physical sector size. This prevents rewrites as long as the smaller sector size is an even divisor. An irregular division of (original sector size / physical sector size) creates rewrites (RMWs) and should not be allowed.

from this doc: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc917726.aspx

DenisT SSC-Addicted Points: 493 More actions · Answer 4

Wow! I already forgot about this post! Thank you, Wesley! It's very useful to know. I should read this IO white paper, looks interesting.

Denis