Storage Area Network Configuration IOPS

Rick Martinez

585 pts.

Tags:

IOPS

SQL 2005

SQL Server 2005

SQL Server 2005 performance

Storage Area Network

I have a SAN with a RAID 10 (16 Drives) and a stripe size of 512. I want to align the disks for better SQL Server performance, the problem is that the OS is already installed on a non-aligned drive and SQL Server is running in production using non-aligned drives. My current 8 drives starting partition offset is 32256 and the file allocation unit size is 4096. IOPS = 750 MB/sec = 13 Latency = 10ms Disk Queue Length = 7 Block Size = 20KB 1.Can I just align the disks where the SQL Server database files live? 2.Aligning only the drives where the SQL Server database files live would that create a bigger block size in IOPS? 3.Do I have to also align the drive where the OS lives? 4.Maybe the main question is what controls the block size that gets sent to the SAN?

Software/Hardware used:
SQL SERVER 2005, SAN

Asked: January 13, 2011 11:10 PM Last updated: January 17, 2011 11:41 PM

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Last updated: January 17, 2011 11:40 PM GMT

Denny Cherry68,665 pts.
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- Denny Cherry68,665 pts.

Thanks. We'll let you know when a new response is added.

To get the best performance all volumes which are stored on the storage array should have the partitions aligned.

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saturno Jan 14, 2011 11:28 PM GMT

For the sake of the job, if you really want to do something, you need to start all over from beginning. Not only your databases and SQL will benefit but also your OS, SQL binaries, SQL log files, etc. Some Admin's/Engineers think that the improvement is irrelevant while other don't eve know what is this about. It is not. Partition alignment does make a big difference. I'm talking with own experience, I've already been where you are about 4 years ago. If you want, please read this paper. It is only to make you feel you need it. Regards,

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