RAID configuration

My company is using an IBM SAN with SQL 2000 Standard Edition, with no problems. I don't think Enterprise Edition is a requirement for SAN usage. The server sees the SAN as another drive letter.

kstefan Say Hey Kid Points: 667 More actions · Answer 6

I also use SQL 2000 Standard Edition on a new IBM Server with two processors which replaced an older and less capable Compaq server. We see no performance gain at all as we expected. There is also 25% CPU activity and about 75% memory utilization. Any ideas ?

mcdonep SSC Journeyman Points: 87 More actions · Answer 7

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If by chance you're using an IBM serveraid adapter you can go with raid 1E which is sorta like raid 10 in that it has less write overhead than raid 5 but still gives you good read performance and fault tolerance. Can be done with just 3 drives too.
Edited by - tomwiggin on 02/10/2003 07:58:18 AM

Where ever possible, I have tried to avoid using a vendor's propritary disk scheme. HP has one that's called ADG. Based on research into their performace metrics the Raid 10 was still better. I have a real concern for platform compatibility when vendors depart from industy standard.

Edited by - mcdonep on 02/22/2003 12:10:13 PM

mcdonep SSC Journeyman Points: 87 More actions · Answer 8

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Also I have been informed that SAN only works properly with ENTERPRISE Edition is this true??

The editions of SQL Server don't really care what the Disk subsystem technology is. The still rely on the operating system for that. I don't know of any limitation the NT, W2K, or XP OS editions have with a SAN subsystem. The key here is that your hardware should be on Microsoft's approved hardware listing.

mcdonep SSC Journeyman Points: 87 More actions · Answer 9

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KSTEFAN - There is also 25% CPU activity and about 75% memory utilization. Any ideas ?

Tuning the performance of a SQL server requires you to look at the performance triangle. The triangle is composed of CPU, Memory, and Disk subsystem metrics. The numbers that you have provided don't necessarily indicate that you are having a problem. As an example, the 75% memory utilization would be excellent if the page life expectancy was high and your procedure cache didn’t have a big turnover. Are your users complaining of slow response times?

kstefan Say Hey Kid Points: 667 More actions · Answer 10

I would say they do in the light of my previous posting on Feb 18, 2003.

tomwiggin SSC Veteran Points: 285 More actions · Answer 11

Have you looked at your code? Maybe it's not as efficient as it could be.

tomwiggin SSC Veteran Points: 285 More actions · Answer 12

and as far as using 1E, Microsoft seems to have no problem using it to highlight SQL server performance with Great Plains accounting. RAID 10 better? Sure but if you only have 3 disk, 1E will be a lot better than 5.