Sql server databases on flash drives

  • We have a project to move our largest customer database, and tempdb, from Netapp magnetic drives to Netapp SSDs.

    I hadn't heard of using these for anything other than tempdb??

    This is on a two-node cluster.

  • Indianrock (7/5/2016)


    We have a project to move our largest customer database, and tempdb, from Netapp magnetic drives to Netapp SSDs.

    I hadn't heard of using these for anything other than tempdb??

    This is on a two-node cluster.

    Since IO is the cause of the VAST majority of performance problems I see day-in-and-day-out in my SQL Server consulting business, moving to SSDs is often a "magic bullet" of sorts for improving performance. It is SOOO not limited to just tempdb these days. That mantra comes from long ago when the per-GB cost was prohibitive.

    HOWEVER!!!! Note that you STILL NEED TO TEST UNDER LOAD BEFORE GOING TO PRODUCTION!!! More than once I have had clients move to SSDs and get hit by deadlocks that didn't happen (enough to worry about) on rotating IO due to the IO stalls they provided. One client was so bad their system was immediately non-functional once they opened the flood gates due to the blizzard of deadlocks they received. Note they did this without telling me they were going to do it, and I had been working with them for years. And they had no rollback plan because better hardware can't POSSIBLY be bad, right?!? That was a bad early-am call ... :crazy:

    Best,
    Kevin G. Boles
    SQL Server Consultant
    SQL MVP 2007-2012
    TheSQLGuru on googles mail service

  • I'm not sure we really have a good way to test a production load in QA. Always been a problem. The other obvious questions are whether to do a detach/copy/re-attach or backup restore.

    Snap Manager for sql server ( Netapp ) is an odd bird that we have to use to bring up DR, but generally I don't like to use it and opt for native backups/restores when refreshing QA from production.

    The goal is that the paths to all data/log files will be identical down to the drive letter and mount points.

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