Whitepaper on Predeployment I/O Best Practices, plus a few urban legends around SQL Server IO

There’s a new whitepaper on TechNet that I’ve just come across (even though it was published 6 months ago!) called Predeployment I/O Best Practices. It’s really good – discussing the following:

Guidelines for determining I/O capacity
Disk configuration best practices and common pitfalls
Using SQLIO to determine capacity and interpreting its results
Using System Monitor to monitor an IO subsystem

You can read it here and I’ve added a link to our whitepapers page.

While I’m on the subject of I/O, Bob Dorr (A Senior Escalation Engineer in PSS) published a blog post last year that debunks a couple of urban legends around SQL Server’s IO, specifically:

The myth that SQL Server used one thread per data file
The myth that a disk queue length greater than 2 indicates an I/O bottleneck

Check out his blog post and the subsequent discussion here.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Other articles

New course and bundle: SQL Server 2025 Vector Search in Practice

(TL;DR; Video trailer for the new course is here.) Joe’s next course, AIVSP: Vector Search in Practice, is now available! This online course builds on AIVSE:

The SQL Server Transaction Log, Part 1: Logging Basics

(This post first appeared on SQLperformance.com four years ago as part of a blog series, before that website was mothballed later in 2022 and the

2025: the year in books

Back in 2009 I started posting a summary at the end of the year of what I read during the year and people enjoy it

New course: SQL Server Vector Search Essentials

(TL;DR: Video trailer for the course is here.) We’re tremendously excited to be developing a library of AI-focused courses, as well as new courses focused

December Deep Discount sale on our Blackbelt bundle!

From now until mid-December we have our lowest prices ever on our signature 158-hour Blackbelt training bundle: US$1,599 for Lifetime access (no expiration) US$899 for

The Curious Case of… log truncation in a distributed availability group

It’s been a while since I wrote one of these, but I’m picking up the series again. This is a question that came in through

Imagine feeling confident enough to handle whatever your database throws at you.

With training and consulting from SQLskills, you’ll be able to solve big problems, elevate your team’s capacity, and take control of your data career.