[dba-SQLServer] SQL Server "locks up"

jwcolby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Wed Jun 10 07:08:33 CDT 2009


I have a TON of drives sitting around.  I just replaced (8) 500g drives with (6) terabyte drives. 
The bigger issue is the power supply.  We'll see.

I even have another 8 channel raid card I can use.

I have an order I have to get out and some other stuff to get done but when I finish that I will go 
do some of this.

At this instant I do have a pair of tbyte drives raid 1 that have the OS (and page file) on one 
volume (Drive C:) and another volume available (Drive D:).  The raid 6 volumes (2 tbyte) are E: and 
F: and live on a set of (6) tbyte drives.

Raid 1 won't be as fast streaming as Raid 6 but it will be a separate set of disks.  What would you 
like moved there and how do I do that?

John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com


Francisco Tapia wrote:
> But the issue that John is describing is that his entire system is locked up
> for up to a minute.  I am thinking that the problem lies within the i/o
> setup.  On my servers here (the massive systems) they are all setup where I
> have my mirror drive on one card, and the page file on a 2nd channel on a
> different set of drives.
> my transaction log is an fiber channel on one volume, as is the database and
> the tempdb.
> 
> I am curious if you could move the pagefile over from the c drive to another
> set of drives(if you have them) to test out this theory.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -Francisco
> http://sqlthis.blogspot.com | Tsql and More...
> 
> 
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 11:36 AM, David Emerson <newsgrps at dalyn.co.nz> wrote:
> 
>> John,
>>
>> One area I have found this to happen is record locking.  If I have a
>> table open and run a query that accesses the table then SQL seems to
>> wait a long time (often until I close the table).
>>
>> David
>>
>> At 10/06/2009, you wrote:
>>> All of them are in the same raid card. The OS is on a raid 1
>>> pair.  The page file is on the C: drive.
>>>
>>> The database is all on a single raid 6, even the same volume.  That
>>> is what the questions I was
>>> asking were aimed at but I didn't really get much response on how to
>>> spread things around so I just
>>> did what I know.
>>>
>>> I have a set of 6 terabyte drives, which taken together gives me two
>>> 2 tbyte volumes, raid 6.  I
>>> find it difficult to imagine that the disk stuff would cause the
>>> server to lock up tight when... I
>>> am running a query (yes it is large) and I click on another database
>>> to just look at the views
>>> contained in that database, or open a stored procedure to see what
>>> it looks like.
>>>
>>> It just seems like that should be instantaneous.  I have told SQL
>>> Server to leave 3 gigs of ram
>>> available (only take 5 of the 8 gigs).  It appears that SQL Server
>>> does indeed respect that because
>>> the size of the committed memory is only 5 gigs, and increases if I
>>> go in and increase that number
>>> while the query is running.
>>>
>>> So in theory I have 3 gigs available for the OS and other apps.  The
>>> processors are idling.  And yet
>>> it does not matter what I do, from look at parts of the databases to
>>> trying to open Excel or Access,
>>> it just takes 60 seconds or more to respond.
>>>
>>> I have no idea how to troubleshoot this, but the one constant is
>>> that I do not have this issue
>>> unless SQL Server is busy.
>>>
>>> John W. Colby
>>> www.ColbyConsulting.com
>>>
>>>
>>> Francisco Tapia wrote:
>>>> Are these large queries?  What's your disk distribution setup like?
>>>> Where is the OS disk what channel on your raid card, Where is
>>> your Page File
>>>> on what channel / Raid Card, where is your DB, what chan... well
>>> you get the
>>>> picture...
>>>>
>>>> If it's all processing via the same raid card I'm afraid you may have
>> to
>>>> troubleshoot that part.  There is absolutely no reason your server
>> should
>>>> hang while running a view, unless there are problems with the view, or
>> the
>>>> design on your I/O layout.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> -Francisco
>>>> http://sqlthis.blogspot.com | Tsql and More...
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:56 AM, jwcolby
>>> <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
>>>>> Why does SQL Server "lock up" when I am running a query and I try to
>> do
>>>>> something such as view the
>>>>> design of a view on a completely different view?
>>>>>
>>>>> BTW SQL Server has been limited to 5 gigs out of 8 gigs total memory.
>>>>>
>>>>> It seems that SQL Server should be able to do things like this with
>>>>> absolutely no hesitation.  Yet
>>>>> when I am running a large query and I try to do anything else,
>>> such as view
>>>>> the tables or views,
>>>>> view the SQL in a stored procedure etc., even in a completely
>> different
>>>>> database, the entire system
>>>>> just locks up for a long time, as in a minute.  The odd part is that
>> the
>>>>> query isn't even using much
>>>>> cpu.  I have a quad core and the total cpu usage in task manager says
>> 0%,
>>>>> yet I can't get anything
>>>>> else to work.  Even something like saving a change to an Access module
>> and
>>>>> closing Access takes a
>>>>> full minute.
>>>>>
>>>>> It is truly annoying.  I often have to do other things on the
>>> machine while
>>>>> queries run and it is
>>>>> just impossible to get anything else done.
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