Improve storage performance

Improve storage performance

The capacity of the storage system is determined by the capacity requirements of the database, while the speed of the storage system is often a neglected metric. In the SQL Server world, disk storage speed is king. SQL Serve's need for I/O capabilities is one of the most important factors before memory, network adapters, or processors. Keep the storage as fast as possible. This means connecting the storage Area network (SAN) to the other end of the hyperfast fibre connection and communicating with the disk using a fast SAN protocol such as iSCSI.

Keep a close eye on the workload that the database actually handles, and match the storage technology (such as RAID) to the workload. For example, RAID 5 provides recoverability in the event of a device failure, but it adds a bit more write time, because additional information for data recovery must be written every time the update is done.

A fast disk controller can help solve this problem by caching the data sent by the server and then quickly writing the data to disk. Each element of the storage subsystem plays a key role in performance, such as single disk rotation speed, bare device I/O, average seek time, communication medium (copper or fiber). Work with experienced storage vendors to provide the best SQL Server performance for a system.

If money is a problem, cut the processor, or even memory, before cutting the storage. Storage performance is a long-term way to extend SQL Server.