John W. Colby
jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Fri Aug 20 09:15:44 CDT 2004
When I imported this mailing list into SQL Server every field came in as varchar 255. What does this mean in terms of actual disk space used? Does SQL Server "reserve" 255 bytes for that field or does it dynamically assign just enough space to hold the actual contents. Many if not most of the fields are a Y or N (actual character in the text coming in). Would it benefit me to change the data type for these columns in terms of the actual data storage size? If I did that would the DTS doing the import from the comma delimited field still function correctly (I assume yes to that since the data still fits). John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of John W. Colby Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 10:49 PM To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com Subject: [dba-SQLServer] External hard disk I purchased a "mobile disk" external hard disk enclosure from CompUSA to put one of the 200gb hard disks in so I could take the db with me and work off my laptop. I found a diag program out there somewhere that tested the transfer speed. For USB 2.0 the transfer speed was ~25 mbyte / sec. For fire wire (4 pin) it was only 17.5 mbyte / sec. This with the Maxtor 200g 8mb cache. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com -----Original Message----- From: dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-sqlserver-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Michael Maddison Sent: Thursday, August 19, 2004 7:44 PM To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com Subject: RE: [dba-SQLServer] Block size for SQL Server disk Most of the recommendations for sector size say bigger is better. I have a ppt presentation from UNISYS that looks at all the options for setting up a SQL server box. IIRC they recommend 64K because it allows the fastest file growth. While SQL uses 8k page sizes I'm not sure that relates directly to sector size! If anyone wants a copy of the ppt lemme know. cheers Michael M On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 16:01:05 -0400, John W. Colby <jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote: > I have purchased new disks to build this new SQL Server database on. I > believe I have read that SQL Server uses 8k block sizes internally. > Is it useful to format the hard disk to 8K sectors so that the SQL > blocks map to sectors directly? Does anyone know if this helps or > hinders? Although Sql Server uses 8k block sizes internally I've never heard on any list that it's a good idea to format your hdd that way... so I'd say nope. -- -Francisco _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com _______________________________________________ dba-SQLServer mailing list dba-SQLServer at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/dba-sqlserver http://www.databaseadvisors.com