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maddman
Starting Member
2 Posts |
 Posted - 2010-03-17 : 13:32:38
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| The company I work for sells inventory control software that uses SQL. The servers I assemble are used in environments of about 5-20 users. Since most retailers we deal with don't have 10's of thousands of dollars to spend on an elaborate server we try to make a very cookie cutter option for them. Reliability is also a factor since I am installing about 20+/year and as a company we supply support for those servers and Point of Sale machines. I am looking to start using Win 2008 R2 and SQL 2008. My question is what would be a faster RAID option with 4 hard drives? Do I go with 2 RAID 1 sets- One with O/S and the other with SQL Data (Which is what I have been doing with Win 2003 R2 and SQL 2005) or 1 RAID10? If RAID10 is the way to go should I partition the drive to have an O/S partition and a Data partition or leave it as one big partition? |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-17 : 13:56:43
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Do you have any performance problems at present?If not how about just chuck the whole lot on RAID5, say?On my server we made a massive (at the time) C: drive for O/S and D: for data. 5 years later and the C: drive is 90% uninstall files for Windows Updates and is full ...If I were in your shoes I would put some effort into making the Backup Files bullet-proof in a cooker-cutter sense. Getting them onto a physically separate drive would go some way to preventing data loss if the main drive fails (RAID5 is fine provided the client actually detects that one drive is dead, and replaces it before a second drive dies - doesn't always happen IME  ). Better still would be an easy means of copying Backup files onto A.N.Other machine/server as soon as they are made (regardless of when they might, subsequently, be copied to Tape etc.).Also I would configure TLog backups every 15 minutes to minimise the possible data loss in a total-system-failure scenario (but that only succeeds if the files have been copied elsewhere - see my earlier point  ) |
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maddman
Starting Member
2 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-17 : 14:20:30
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We have used RAID5 in that past and it has bit us in the butt (Data loss, slow recovery time, and total Data loss). Since I am dealing with retailers with the technical knowledge of a squirrel RAID5 is just to volatile. Reliability is the name of the game here because most of the retailers we sell to don't have IT people onsite and we are dealing with cashiers. I try to make the server as hands off as possible. But to answer your question we don't have performance problems yet but I am always looking for the best possible solution for my company. Since we are going to be buying different servers I think is a good time to explore RAID choices. My 2 choices are RAID1 or RAID10 and I am unsure of which would be fastest. You must of read my mind with the backups. We put a premium on backups so that is not an issue. In the 4 drive setup I am referring to it does not include the backup scheme we use. We do offsite and onsite backups daily. quote:
Originally posted by Kristen
Do you have any performance problems at present?If not how about just chuck the whole lot on RAID5, say?On my server we made a massive (at the time) C: drive for O/S and D: for data. 5 years later and the C: drive is 90% uninstall files for Windows Updates and is full ...If I were in your shoes I would put some effort into making the Backup Files bullet-proof in a cooker-cutter sense. Getting them onto a physically separate drive would go some way to preventing data loss if the main drive fails (RAID5 is fine provided the client actually detects that one drive is dead, and replaces it before a second drive dies - doesn't always happen IME ). Better still would be an easy means of copying Backup files onto A.N.Other machine/server as soon as they are made (regardless of when they might, subsequently, be copied to Tape etc.).Also I would configure TLog backups every 15 minutes to minimise the possible data loss in a total-system-failure scenario (but that only succeeds if the files have been copied elsewhere - see my earlier point )
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-17 : 14:47:18
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| " We do offsite and onsite backups daily."Sounds too infrequent to me ... just to make sure I am on the same wavelength that will mean, worst case, a 23hour+59minute data loss?I know what you mean about RAID5, but I think the data loss only comes when it is abused - failure to replace a drive when first drive goes down, and only realise there is a problem when second drive goes down !!I'm no expert on RAID, but I don't see the various flavours being less prone to abuse.(Given that I'm no expert my thoughts need confirmation)RAID1 benefits sequential writing. Ideal for TLogs (LDF files) and BackupsRAID10 benefits random access (and is better in that regard than RAID5) and thus benefits data (MDF) filesRAID10 needs more disks, so presumably more expensive, but higher performance.All of these flavours of RAID have let me down, in one way or another, over the years Even if it was only buggy drivers (i.e. theoretically perfect, poor implementation by manufacturer ) |
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Kristen
Test
22859 Posts |
Posted - 2010-03-17 : 14:48:29
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| P.S. Maybe some hot-spares would be worth considering? Takes the numpty human somewhat out of the equation |
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RAID 10 vs RAID 1 question