Disk config

  • Defrag isn't capable to deal with 64K blocks or why do you say this about the third party tool/win2003?

    My tought is the block size and the NTFS allocation unit size should be the the same, or at least multiples one of the other.

    This makes any sense?

  • > Defrag isn't capable to deal with 64K blocks or why do you say this about the third party tool/win2003?

    Yes, Windows 2000 Server defrag utility cannot deal with blocks larger than 4K.  Third-party defrag utilities and SQL Server 2003 can.

    > My tought is the block size and the NTFS allocation unit size should be the the same, or at least multiples one of the other.

    The NTFS "allocation unit" is what we mean by block size.  Microsoft also sometimes refers to this as a "cluster."



    --Jonathan

  • Woops, I was meaning to raid-stripe/ntfs-block relation.

    This relation has any sense or... what is the reccomended stripe size for a SQL server?

  • sounds like you'll end up going with the 1 hard drive for OS and the other 4 for your RAID5 db's and logs on same drive.

  • That's a bigger "it depends."  The optimum stripe size (which is the block size of each drive in the set) depends upon the RAID level, databse type, and, most importantly, the controller hardware.  I guess the safe answer here would be to check with your hardware vendor; SQL Server-specific documentation from the vendor will be much more trustworthy on this than anyone you would get on the phone...



    --Jonathan

  • Got it.

    Thank you all guys.

  • See if this provides additional information:

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/maintain/sqlIObasics.mspx

    --
    Frank Kalis
    Microsoft SQL Server MVP
    Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
    My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

  • I think this article is more relevant to the thread; it recommends 64KB blocks and RAID 0+1 over RAID5:

    http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/sql/2000/maintain/sqlops6.mspx

    A quote:

    "The only advantage the older [sic] RAID 5 has is that you get more storage space. So, the question to ask is: Do you need to store a great deal of data on as little hardware as possible (but still have some fault tolerance), or do you need fast access and higher fault tolerance? Take a hard look at the size of your data files before making this decision, even on a small server with internal-only drives."



    --Jonathan

Viewing 8 posts - 16 through 22 (of 22 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply