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Best Configuration For Large MSSQL 2K5 Server?

Hey Everyone, I’m building a new PC for a set of very large MS-SQL databases (currently weighing in at approx 4TB, and should grow significantly going forward as well). This is for personal business-related use — I do not have access to a database expert, I am not in an enterprise (self employed), etc., so I am turning here for help. I’m wondering what type of machine I should get to handle this type of database. It will not particularly be under particularly heavy load (just a few simultaneous connections, not too many queries running at once), but is obviously a very large database (with over 22 billion rows of data). I don’t know what type of hardware setup would be optimal for this machine (mainly processors). What I have spec’d out at the moment is:
12 * SAMSUNG SpinPoint T Series HD501LJ 500GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drives
1 * ASUS DSBF-D/SAS Dual Socket 771 Intel 5000P SSI EEB 3.61 Server Motherboard
1 * Areca ARC-1160 64-bit/133MHz PCI-X SATA II Controller Card – Retail
1 * Kingston 4GB(2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 FB-DIMM DDR2 667 (PC2 5300) ECC Fully Buffered Dual Channel Kit Server Memory Model KVR667D2D4F5K2/4G
2 * Intel Xeon 5140 Woodcrest 2.33GHz Socket 771 Active or 1U Processor Model BX805565140A – Retail
1 * BFG Tech BFGR800WPSU ATX 12V Ver.2.2/ EPS 12V Ver.2.91 800W Power Supply – Retail
1 * LIAN LI PC-V2100APlus II Silver Aluminum Server Computer Case – Retail Priced on newegg, comes to a total of $4,915.33 In the <$5000 range, can you guys think of anything that would be superior? The 12*500GB’s I want to run in RAID5/6 or 50, and the Areca card seems to be one of the best on the market (not to mention has 16 ports for future scalability). The RAM is FB-DIMM’s, Xeons….. am I missing anything? Also, I’m a bit concerned about performance on the Xeons. The ones I chose are dual cores. Since there arent going to be toooo many simul queries (really, often, prolly 1 at a time even), should i try for single core processors? Anyways, thanks for the help.
As usual refer tohttp://www.sql-server-performance.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=16995 thread for more reference, also other threads in this section for more information. Satya SKJ
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Writer, Contributing Editor & Moderator
http://www.SQL-Server-Performance.Com
This posting is provided AS IS with no rights for the sake of knowledge sharing. The greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes of mind.
The amount of data will not be the big problem here, but how you access it. If this database is for your personal use, as you describe, the hardware you describe above is more than adequate. If you find that this server has any performance problems, it is most likely because of poor database design, poor indexing, or poor query writing. So, once you have this hardware, and test out performance of your data and its application, and if you have performance issues, then take the time to learn how to optimize what I have described above. If I was to tweak any of the above choices, I would go with SCSI drives, 10,000 RPM or higher, as disk IO will most likely be your biggest bottleneck, not CPU. ——————————–
Brad M. McGehee, SQL Server MVP
http://www.sqlbrad.com
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