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Storage Preparation & Verification

 

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server

 

Covering both the historical background information surrounding partition alignment and the negative performance impact unaligned partitions can have, this paper is essential reading for anyone involved in storage configuration for SQL Server systems. It provides actual results that demonstrate the performance impact of unaligned partitions, and includes a discussion of how Windows Server 2008 deals with this situation ... Source : Jimmy May and Denny Lee - Best Practices Article - Microsoft.com

 

 

Predeployment I/O Best Practices

 

When configuring a new server for SQL Server or when adding or modifying the disk configuration of an existing system, it is good practice to determine the capacity of the I/O subsystem prior to deploying SQL Server. This white paper discusses validating and determining the capacity of an I/O subsystem. A number of tools are available for performing this type of testing. This white paper focuses on the SQLIO.exe tool, but also compares all available tools. It also covers basic I/O configuration best practices for SQL Server 2005 ... Source : Microsoft.com - Technet Article

 

 

Physical Database Storage Design

 

One of the classics. This downloadable whitepaper covers the all important process of designing storage for SQL Server. As well as an overview of the differences in OLTP/OLAP workloads, it includes details of sizing a system for performance and throughput, RAID levels and the different types of storage systems available today ... Source : Microsoft.com - Whitepaper

 

 

SQLIOSim

 

SQLIOSim is a correctness and stress tool (not a performance measurement tool).  Use this to verify your IO subsystem is functioning correctly under heavy loads. In this SQL Server Storage Engine Blog post, links are provided for download, and the usage of the tool is discussed ... Source : Jerome Halmans - SQL Server Storage Engine - Blog Post

 

 

SQLIOSim II 

 

SQLIOSim is used to validate the integrity of the IO Subsystem. In this post, the PSS Engineers provide an overview of how this tool works ... Source : PSS SQL Server Engineers - Blog Post

 

 

SQLIOSIM; Under the covers

 

In this post, the PSS SQL Server Engineers provide more information on a number of aspects of SQLIOSIM including Running Average, Target Duration and Discarded Buffers ... Source : PSS SQL Server Engineers - Blog Post

 

 

Understanding SQLIOSIM Output

 

Kevin shares a conversation with Jimmy May on understanding SQLIOSIM output ... Source : Kevin Kline - SQLBlog.com

 

 

Benchmarking with SQLIO

 

In this article, Linchi demonstrates how the file size used in SQLIO tests can have a dramatic impact on the results ... Source : Linchi Shea - SQLTeam.com

 

 

SQLIO Disk Subsystem Benchmark Tool

 

SQLIO is a tool provided by Microsoft which can also be used to determine the I/O capacity of a given configuration ... Source : Microsoft.com - Download

 

 

Interpreting SQLIOSIM Output

 

Kevin shares the results of a conversation with Bob Dorr and Jose Fortuny on the output from SQLIOSIM. Be sure to check the follow up post here ... Source : Kevin Kline - SQLBlog.com

 

 

Disk failures in the real world: What does a Mean Time to Failure of 1 million hours mean to you?

 

A great read comparing real world disk replacement rates compared to published Mean Time To Failure (MTTF) rates ... Source : usenix.org - whitepaper

 

 

Storage Area Networks

 

What you can and can't do with SAN replication

 

A great post from Denny on a very important topic - What SAN replication is good (and NOT good) at ... Source : Denny Cherry - techtarget.com

 

 

SAN Multipathing

 

Brent walks us through the benefits and considerations for using SAN Multipathing ... Source : brentozar.com - Blog Post

 

 

HBA Queue Depth Resources

 

A great blog from Joe focussed on HBA Queue Depth. In it, he links to a number of other prominent blogs which describe the performance impact (good and bad) of testing with various different settings ... Source : Joe Sack - MSDN.com - Blog Post

 

 

Moving from Local to SAN Storage

 

Brent offers a number of important points for consideration when moving to SAN storage including network redundancy and multipathing software ... Source : Brent Ozar - TechTarget.com

 

 

SQL Server on SAN: Best Practices

 

A 54 page powerpoint deck from Mike on SQL Server on SAN Best Practices ... Source : Mike Ruthruff - SQLCat Team - Powerpoint Deck

 

 

Performance Impact of File Fragmentation in a SAN

 

The first in a six part series on the performance impact of file fragmentation on SAN drives ... Source : Linchi Shea - SQLBlog.com

 

 

SAN Performance Tuning with SQLIO

 

Using SQLIO for SAN Performance Tuning is the focus of this SQLServerPedia Wiki ... Source : SQLServerPedia.com - Wiki

 

 

Virtualized Storage

 

Despite the amazing flexibility provided by virtualized SAN storage, it presents a number of challenges for the DBA. In this article, Brent covers the major pain points ... Source : Brent Ozar - TechTarget.com

 

 

Deploying SQL Server on a SAN

 

This series of blog posts from the SQL CAT team covers a wide ranging set of topics such as virtualization of physical disks, RAID groups, creation and sizing of LUNs, alignment of sectors, NTFS format size, base lining of SAN throughput, dynamic and basic disks, sizing and allocation of Windows files, isolation of data, index and log objects and performance monitoring. The provided link is part 1. Part 2 is here and Part 3 is here ... Source : Prem Mehra and Mike Ruthruff - SQL Server Customer Advisory Team - Blog Post

 

 

SAN Oversubscription

 

Jimmy May blogs about symptoms of SAN Oversubscription; High latency and low throughput ... Source : Jimmy May - MSDN.com - Blog Post

 

 

SAN 101 Video

 

A great webcast from Brent introducing Storage Area Networks (SANs) ... Source : Brent Ozar - Webcast

 

 

SAN Configuration

 

A humorous exchange between 2 respected SQL Server experts on the merits (or otherwise) of separating data and logs in a SAN ... Source : brentozar.com - Blog Post

 

 

Tuning SQL Server 2005 Performance for Hitachi SAN's

 

This article is specific to Hitachi (HDS) SAN's, but gives an excellent insight into SAN performance tuning concepts for SQL Server regardless of the SAN vendor ... Source : Hds.com

 

 

Fibre Channel / iSCSI Performance Comparison

 

iSCSI shows promise as it leverages the features of Ethernet topologies and TCP/IP - encapsulating the SCSI command set over IP. Read this report by NetApp which provides insight into the topic of FCP versus iSCSI for DSS workloads using SQL Server 2005 ... Source : Microsoft.com - Whitepaper

 

 
Deployments and Tests in an iSCSI SAN

 

iSCSI SANs offer an alternative for building Storage Area Networks. Consolidating storage in a SAN offers storage management and scaling benefits for datacenters. iSCSI support in Windows Server 2003 makes connecting servers to an iSCSI SAN easy and affordable. This paper describes the deployment and testing results of SQL Server 2005 using the Microsoft iSCSI Initiator with an EqualLogic iSCSI SAN. It helps you understand best practices and the benefits of using an iSCSI SAN with SQL Server 2005 ... Source : Microsoft.com - MSDN Article

 

 

SAN vs Direct Attach Storage - The winner is...

 

SANs are blisteringly fast right? Way faster than local attached storage! Not always, as this arcticle points out ... Source : sqlteam.com - article

 

 

SQL Server and SANs: The QueueDepth Setting of a Host Bus Adapter (HBA) 

 

Great blog post from Linchi Shea on I/O throughput variability when altering the Queue Depth settings on the HBA  ... Source : Linchi Shea - SQLBlog.com - Blog Post

 

 

Storage Sizing and Configuration

 

Storage Best Practices

 

Some of the most common best practices that the SQL Server team recommends with respect to storage configuration for SQL Server ... Source : Microsoft.com - Technet Article

 

 

Sizing Storage for Performance Requirements

 

A good article that describes a method to calculate the number of spindles/disks in a storage system required to meet a given workload ... Source : SQLJunkies.com - Article

 

 

Finding Disk Partition Offsets

 

Linchi shares an executable (and source code) that will take a input file containing server names and report the partition offsets of their disk volumes. Fantastic stuff, and much easier than a manual discovery method in sites with many servers ... Source : Linchi Shea - SQLBlog.com

 

 

Partition Alignment

 

There are many articles that list partition alignment as an important configuration step, but few that go to this level of detail explaining why this is important. In this post, Jimmy also links to a downloadable powerpoint deck that walks through the process and supporting information. Great stuff. ... Source : Jimmy May - msdn.com - Blog Post

 

 

More Partition Alignment

 

Track aligning disk partitions before formatting is crucial in delivering the best possible disk IO performance. This post contains a forum exchange on configuring a Clarion SAN for partition alignment ... Source : Grumpy Old DBA - SQLBlogCasts.com - Blog Post

 

 

Partition Alignment in VMWare Guests

 

Thanks to Brent Ozar for this link. Duncan demonstrates a method of inspecting the disks of VMWare guests for correct partition alignment. Run from the host, this method will inspect all guest VMs ... Source : Duncan Epping - YellowBricks.com - Blog Post

 

 

Disk Geometry & Track Alignment

 

A great article on disk geometry and the importance of track alignment. Whilst its written for an Exchange audience, it's equally applicable for a SQL Server deployment ... Source : msexchange.org - Article

 

 

I/O Basics

 

This white paper introduces new terms, discusses maintenance and configuration issues, new and improved error messages, and I/O enhancements. After reading this document you will better understand SQL Server I/O needs and capabilities in SQL Server 2000 Service Pack 4 and SQL Server 2005 ... Source : Microsoft.com - Technet Article

 

 

I/O Subsystem Performance Tuning

 

This paper considers performance from both the hardware and software perspectives. In addition, it discusses tools for storage subsystem analysis and design and provides rules of thumb and guidelines for system design and to solve the performance bottlenecks in specific configurations ... Source : Microsoft.com - Article

 

 

Storage Performance for SQL Server

 

Another great post from Joe covering various aspects of storage configuration for optimal Disk I/O Performance ... Source : Joe Chang - SQLblog.com - Blog Post

 

 

Physical Database Storage Design

 

This article provides a guide for physical storage design and gives recommendations and trade-offs for physical hardware design and file architecture. Update; Linchi Shea comments on this paper in his recent blog post  ... Source : Microsoft.com - Technet Article

Solid State Storage

 

SSD vs. SAS and SATA

 

A great article from AnandTech comparing SSD to SATA and SAS ... Source : AnandTech.com - Article

 

 

Enterprise Class SSD

 

This post contains a good description of EMC's recently released SSD offering for its enterprise class Symmetrix SAN solution. It also contains a great overview of SSD technology in general ... Source : thestorageanarchist.typepad.com - Blog Post

 

 

A Case for Flash Memory SSD in Enterprise Database Applications

 

A 12 page PDF exploring the benefits of SSD and the positive impact it will have on Enterprise Database Applications ... Source : San-Won Lee et al - cse.ust.hk - Whitepaper

 

 

Solid State Disk IO

 

Chad compares SQLIO figures from 4 different platforms, one of which uses SSD (Solid State Disk). Interesting results ... Source : Chad - sqlstuff.info - blog post

 

 

Flash Memory and Databases

 

Flash memory is coming. How will it impact on DBMS's like SQL Server? Lichi blogs about Goetz Graefe's update on Gray and Putzolo's original five-minute rule which was written in 1985 and subtitled Trading Memory for Disc Accesses ... Source : Linchi Shea - SQLblog.com - Blog Post

 

RAID

 

Battle Against Any RAID Five

 

The name says it all. These guys really dislike RAID-5 and go to great lengths to explain why ... Source : baarf.com

 

 

 


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