Storage

I’ve already explained that no, it doesn’t make your database server more reliable – and in fact, it’s the exact opposite. But what about performance? The answer is going to depend on your hardware and workload, but let’s work through an example. I’ll take the first lab workload from the Mastering Server Tuning class and…

Snapshots by Polaroid? That’s not right. You’re a DBA responsible for making sure SQL Server databases are online, backed up, corruption-free, and fast. Your databases have gradually grown in size over time, and you’re starting to hit new size issues you haven’t encountered before. Nightly maintenance windows are getting smaller, you’re not able to refresh…

You’ve heard these terms thrown around about storage, and you’re not sure what they mean, and how they relate to each other. Let’s make it simpler by using an analogy. Say you want to measure a shipping company. You’re trying to decide whether to use DHL, FedEx, UPS, or your local postal service. You could…

Storage sizing isn’t just about space: it’s about latency and throughput. When you move to new hardware or the cloud, and when you try to consolidate SQL Servers, you can’t just add up the database sizes and call it a day. Storage sizing isn’t just about space: it’s about latency and throughput. So how can…

Your users are complaining that their queries are slow. You’ve tried changing SQL Server settings, tuning indexes, but the problem just won’t go away. You’ve got a hunch that it’s a storage problem, but you need real, empirical proof. You need numbers that no one can argue, and you need to know acceptable targets for…

I bet you wanna know whether your storage is hot or not, and there’s no quicker, easier way to get a rough idea of your storage’s capabilities than to fire up CrystalDiskMark. This month, CrystalDiskMark released an all-new version 7, and it makes for even better testing. Start by downloading it and installing it –…

We’ve all had to move a database. For databases above a small size, this is a painful process. While there are a number of ways that you can move a database without downtime, they all involve a lot of extra work. What if there were something easier? Every database is unique and precious. What’s the…

I’m a bit of a researcher. When I want to know about a topic, I start off by doing a lot of reading. After I take a lot in, I want to make  sure I understand the details. At that point, I try to think like a scientist. I come up with ways to test what…

Buying SAN gear is hard work.  You have to compare vendors based on performance, capacity, reliability, ease of implementation, quality of support, and of course, price.  When I’m working with a client buying new storage, here’s the questions I have them ask each prospective storage vendor. Q: If we buy SSD, SAS, and SATA drives,…

Let’s oversimplify the bejeezus out of this complex problem.  Suspend your disbelief for a second and work with me: We have a database server hosting just one 100GB table.  Sure, in reality, we’ve got lots of databases and lots of tables, but we’re going to keep this simple.  We’ve got a simple sales table that…

Database administrators want just one kind of storage: fast. Companies want just one kind of storage: cheap. Since fast storage isn’t cheap, and we can’t put everything on slow storage either, we end up buying different tiers of storage. Let’s start by pretending that we’re buying a new HP DL370 G6 to act as a…

I wanted to love this monster from the moment I read the spec sheets: Iomega StorCenter PX4-300d NAS Network attached storage device with 4 or 6 hot-swappable drive bays Available empty (so you can bring your own drives, including SSDs) iSCSI server with 2 network ports, jumbo frame support, VLANs Official VMware ESX/ESXi, Hyper-V, Windows…