Looking for info on disk configurations for SQL Server

[Vertigo]

Can anyone hook me up with some links to decent info on the best way of configuring disk subsystems for an SQL Server box.

Basically I don't have the world largest budget but am looking for the best bang-for-buck configuration I can manage.

I'm looking at a hybrid system of SSDs and HDDs as there'll be too much data to store on SSDs alone.

My initial idea was to use a couple of mirrored SSDs to hold the log files and then store the databases on a set of four HDDs in a RAID10 configuration.

I'm wondering whether this would be the best route or whether restricting the SSDs to log file duties only would be a waste and perhaps I'd be better off with another system, perhaps using the SSDs as caches for the HDDs in some way?

Would appreciate any info people have on this

 

[Little_Crow]

I think you're pretty much there with the RAID levels you've listed as being a standard recommendation. And yes, SSD's for Logs and HDD for the DB if you're looking for the best performance.
However if you're buying proper server grade kit (We're an HP house so can only talk for their servers and pricing) then a single SSD at retail prices will be ~£4K, which I suspect is way outside of what you'd be looking to spend.

Honestly, unless you have an enormously busy DB I doubt you'd really benefit from SSD's.

 

[covenantuk]

Yeh honestly, unless you're looking at setting up something needing enterprise levels of performance from the back end don't bother with SSD.

We've recently upgraded and are now using SAN, but our SQL cluster used to use a shared standard RAID5 array to run upwards of 40 internal websites and applications.

 

[Vertigo]

Thanks for the input.

Yeah we don't need enterprise levels of performance, just need a box which can host quite a few SQL databases for internal development purposes.

For HDDs, is RAID5 a viable alternative to RAID10? From what I understand, write performance on RAID5 can be an issue unless you throw a decently beefy controller at it or is this ancient history now and most modern controllers are capable of handling RAID5 easily?

 

[covenantuk]

Thanks for the input.

Yeah we don't need enterprise levels of performance, just need a box which can host quite a few SQL databases for internal development purposes.

For HDDs, is RAID5 a viable alternative to RAID10? From what I understand, write performance on RAID5 can be an issue unless you throw a decently beefy controller at it or is this ancient history now and most modern controllers are capable of handling RAID5 easily?

Yeh, I would go for RAID10 unless you absolutely need the space. We often use RAID5 at work but always have decent HP hardware raid controllers fitted.