For Day 23 of this series, I am going to briefly discuss hardware RAID controllers, also known as disk array controllers. Here is what Wikipedia has to say about RAID controllers: A disk array controller is a device which manages the physical disk drives and presents them to the computer as logical units. It almost [...]
Glenn Berry
Semi-random musings about SQL Server performance
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 23
Posted on: April 23, 2013 6:07 am
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 19
Posted on: April 18, 2013 6:57 am
For Day 19 of this series, I am going to talk a little about RAID, which stands for Redundant array of independent disks or Redundant array of inexpensive disks, depending on who you believe. RAID is a technology that allows the use of multiple hard drives, combined in various ways, to improve redundancy, availability and [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 18
Posted on: April 17, 2013 4:27 pm
For Day 18 of this series, I am going to talk about the Intel 910 series PCI-E device that was released back in May of 2012. It is available in 400GB and 800GB capacities. The 400GB model has a suggested retail price about $2000.00 while the 800GB model has a suggested retail price of about [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 17
Posted on: April 17, 2013 3:35 pm
For Day 17 of this series, I am going to talk about the Intel DC S3700 series of 6Gbps MLC SATA SSDs. The DC S3700 series is available in 100GB, 200GB, 400GB, and 800GB capacities. The DC S3700 uses 25nm HET-MLC NAND technology, which means that you get higher write endurance than standard MLC consumer [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 11
Posted on: April 11, 2013 10:17 am
For Day 11 of this series, I am going to talk about some of the basic things that you should consider from a hardware perspective when you are trying to increase the basic resiliency and availability of an individual database server. These are some of the first steps you would take as part of designing [...]
A SQL Server Hardware Tidbit a Day – Day 10
Posted on: April 10, 2013 4:34 pm
For Day 10 of this series, I am going to talk a little bit about disk performance and one easy benchmark tool that you can use to quickly compare the performance of different types of disks and disk arrays. CrystalDiskMark, which is available from Crystal Dew World is a fairly well-known disk subsystem benchmark. You [...]
Intel Flash Storage Products for SQL Server
Posted on: February 1, 2013 3:59 pm
Intel has recently introduced a couple of flash-based storage products that are aimed at the Enterprise and server market. These are both quite price competitive with some of the other storage products in the marketplace. The first is the Intel 910 series that was released back in May of 2012. It is a PCI-E device [...]
Building a Workstation for SQL Server 2012 Development and Testing
Posted on: January 20, 2013 4:28 pm
With the current crop of high-performance and very affordable desktop computer components, it is not very difficult to assemble an extremely high performance workstation for SQL Server 2012 development and testing at a very reasonable cost. Depending on how much of a purist you are and what your available budget is, you can take several [...]
