[dba-SQLServer] Database Files

John W. Colby jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com
Tue Sep 14 14:11:30 CDT 2004


In fact I ended up just using single drives on each SATA channel, no raid of
any kind.  I was focused on getting the data into the db and splitting the
db into 4 files where each file could get as large as 250g was my biggest
priority.  Now that the db is in, I may consolidate some of the files and
throw them on a Raid0 array to up the read performance.

What I was really talking about was whether SQL Server took a performance
hit just by splitting a table across 4 files.

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 Francisco
Tapia
Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 2:11 PM
To: dba-sqlserver at databaseadvisors.com
Subject: Re: [dba-SQLServer] Database Files


When the drives are configured as Raid 5, I understand that it improves read
performance, which you will you've mentioned this db would be doing mostly.
You never mentioned if these drives ere Raid 5 or not.



On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:47:20 -0400, John W. Colby
<jwcolby at colbyconsulting.com> wrote:
> In the quest to get sufficient storage to do the nVLDB bulk mail 
> database I split the database into 5 containers, 4 for storage and one 
> for the log file.  Understand that this is still to this point, and 
> likely will remain just a single table.  Does anyone understand the 
> usage of database files well enough to tell me whether splitting it 
> into multiple pieces like this causes performance degradation or 
> enhancement?  I have read that using different files for different 
> tables can enhance performance, but what about where it is all just a 
> single table?
> 
> In the end I may need to leave it as multiple files since processing 
> such as adding indexes can temporarily inflate the files by almost 
> double.  When I am done they shrink back down nicely but during 
> processing they get big.
> 
> BTW, as to the actual size of the database (one table, 164 million 
> records, 660 fields, 3000+ bytes / record) - it used 4 files of ~40 
> gbytes after shrinking.  I added in the PK (autonumber) and indexed 
> the state code field and ended up with 2 files of 40g and 2 files of 
> 86g after shrinking.  So the indexes added a LOT of size to the 
> database.
> 
> John W. Colby
> www.ColbyConsulting.com
> 
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> 



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