SQL Server Performance Forum – Threads Archive

RAID Stripping VS Filegroup Stripping

We have a production database (SQL Server 2005 SP1) of 15GB size.
I was wondering what is the best? To use RAID Stripping or Filegroup Stripping?Or both?
First Choice:
If I use RAID1+0, I can have 4 physical disks ( 2 for stripping e.g. C: D: and 2 for mirroring lets say C-Mirror: D-Mirror: ) but I could see only one logical disk lets say L:. The RAID mechanism will break my datafiles ( and also every file of my server -operating system files also, I suppose-) to C: and D:.
Second Choice
If I dont use RAID1+0 but RAID-0 then I can have two seperate RAID-0 devices e.g.
1. RAID-0 C: and C-Mirror and I could see one logical device , lets say L1
2. RAID-0 D: and D-Mirror and I could see one logical device , lets say L2
Now I can save my operating system to L1 and I can create a filegroup FG1 with two files, lets say L1:myDb1.ndf and L2:myDB2.ndf. In this case, sql server will choose how to make the stripping of objects belonging to FG1 since the files L1:myDb1.ndf and L2:myDB2.ndf are saved in different physical disks What is the best? What if I could combine the two solutions? If I had RAID0+1 (only one logical disk – see First Choice) then, could the creation of a filegroup help me? Thanks

Filegroups don’t generally help much with performance, especially given a RAID 10 configuration. Filegroups are better used for easier administration of very large databases. I would go with one filegroup on a RAID 10 configuration, although I am sure there will be other opinions. —————————–
Brad M. McGehee, SQL Server MVP

If this is an OLTP based database then go as suggested using RAID 10 in this case. Satya SKJ
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Contributing Editor & Forums Moderator
http://www.SQL-Server-Performance.Com
This posting is provided AS IS with no rights for the sake of knowledge sharing.

]]>