March 10, 2003 at 9:16 am
I would like to know if anyone has had luck storing their data files on a SAN-enabled drive using SQL 2000 Standard Edition. I am getting mixed signals from Microsoft (BOL says it is not supported, tech support says it is possible), but I can't see how the database would even care since it is mapped as a local drive on the box.
Has anyone else had any success doing this? If so, did you use Advanced Server or just 2000 Server for the O.S.? Thanks for any suggestions. Also, what kind of performance did you receive.
I plan to store the log files on the SQL Server box along with the binaries, but point the data files to the SAN-enabled drive. Please recommend or suggest if this is not a good idea.
March 10, 2003 at 9:55 am
It should work fine. There is a difference between SAN and NAS, I think NAS is the one with the caveats. I think you should put all your data on the SAN, especially if you cluster unless the data is on the SAN there is no way for it to failover successfully. Even without the cluster, the SAN should be faster and more available than local disks.
Andy
March 10, 2003 at 10:41 am
As long as the SAN or NAS hardware and\or drivers are working correctly with windows then you shouldn't have any issues. Your right, SQL doesn't care. I think when you start talking about SAN's people automatically think that your planning to cluster. If you were going to cluster SQL servers together then you would have to switch to enterprise software, but it doesn't sound like that's what your trying to accomplish.
With SQL 2000 you should automatically get a performance gain without any additional tweaking... In 7.0 there was a disk access setting that needed to be changed that controlled a wait time for disk access, that's gone in 2000.
Andy is right that all your data should be on the SAN for the best performance gain. Also, If you are leaving your binaries on the local system be sure to move tempdb onto the SAN for another performance boost.
March 10, 2003 at 10:56 am
Thanks for the quick response, you guys answered my questions to a tee. We should not be going through the NAS at all for the data access, just directly to the SAN.
Do you know if we will need Advanced Server to utilize this?
March 10, 2003 at 1:23 pm
Only if you're going to cluster or use more than 4g of memory.
Andy
March 10, 2003 at 3:41 pm
We are using W2K Server(Not Adv), S2K Std Edt on a san, XioTech Magnitude by Seagate, with no issues. "Everything" is on the SAN.
We also have the data files only, from SQL7 Ent Edt running on NT4 Servers. These are our SAP databases(3), each being 70GB+ in size. No issues.
The reason I mentioned the manufacturer of the SAN we are using, is because I also hear there are problems with certain products running on a SAN, but so far, when I press for the SAN that the problem is reported on, no one can remember.
HTH
March 10, 2003 at 4:59 pm
We're just about to put an EMC SAN into production, everything looks good so far. Using Win2K AS, SQL2KEE.
Andy
March 10, 2003 at 5:48 pm
I had the current server running standard attached to the emc san with win2k ent then we moved to a cluster. no problems with sql at all.
Wes
March 11, 2003 at 9:39 am
Are you guys running a dedicated SAN for the database server? Or is it shared?
Wondering becauase we are getting a SAN to remove some file server storage and they are looking to move some DBs there as well.
Steve Jones
March 11, 2003 at 11:17 am
Two db servers and one mail server initially.
Andy
March 11, 2003 at 4:18 pm
One one EMC we have only databases on the other we have everything including db's
Wes
March 13, 2003 at 8:41 am
To be up front about it, I am a corporate DBA/Code Monkey (not a Sales/Marketing 'person') at the SAN manufacturer XIOtech in Eden Prairie, MN. With respect, it drives me nuts to watch the effects of FUD regularly occuring in our professional community.
That said, the answer to your question is that you are correct & can run SQL Server on a SAN.
We eat our own dogfood - our corporate information is stored on our product. We currently have SQL Server 2k SE & EE & Clustered EE running on our product, in addition to Oracle, mySQL, our CRM & MRP, ...
Our standard configuration is to boot our diskless servers directly from the SAN (MS-W2K, Linux, & Solaris), making it very easy to recover when a server fails (unplug/plug in) or when a server needs to be upgraded (mirror & break mirror - redirect if upgrade pukes).
Microsoft itself has a good number of our SAN units in production use.
March 14, 2003 at 11:09 am
Our SAN is used for everything. Lotus Notes, SQL2K, SQL7, File Server, and some servers actually boot from the SAN.
quote:
Are you guys running a dedicated SAN for the database server? Or is it shared?Wondering becauase we are getting a SAN to remove some file server storage and they are looking to move some DBs there as well.
Steve Jones
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/sjones
March 15, 2003 at 5:34 am
SAN is a pretty expensive way to store files. I guess it depends which files you value that much!
Andy
March 16, 2003 at 4:06 pm
we use Clariion SANS for all of our storage including boot drives - the speed difference is impressive.
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