[dba-VB] Suddenly I can see

I bought a nice little (big actually) 4U rack mount case for my SQL Server, the new widget I am 
building.

The cool thing about this case is that it uses 20 hot swap disk sleds, and they have a very neat 
little light pipe system to display the power and activity on each disk.  The disk sleds plug in to 
a backplane, and on that backplane are a green power and blue data LED.  There are two clear plastic 
light pipes along the side of the sled which pipes the light to the front so it can be seen.  Really 
  cool I thought.

What this means to me is that for the first time I can actually see which disks are in use.  The 
server "lights up like a Christmas tree" when stuff is actually written to disk.

I am now able to actually compare the screen as I run processes, and watch the lights and I'm here 
to tell you, my disks are not the bottleneck.  SQL Server will process for many seconds and then a 
burst of disk activity a half second long, then many seconds of crunching, then a half second of 
disk activity.

-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com