[dba-VB] New Server

Last week late and over the weekend I brought up the new server.  That is a *lot* of work!

The server consists of:

1 Norco 4020 case http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16811219021
1 Corsair 750W modular PS http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139010
1 Asus KGPE-D16 Dual Socket G34 motherboard 
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131643
1 AMD Opteron 6128 8 core processor http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819105266
2 Kingston 8GB 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820139140
3 OCZ Vertex 2 OCZSSD2-2VTXE120G SSD http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820227551

Windows *Server* 2008 Enterprise ;)
SQL Server 2008 Enterprise
Visual Studio 2008
Visual SVN

One of the SSD drives is the boot drive, the other two will be for specific database files (raid 0).

So essentially ATM the server is 8 cores and 16 gigs of RAM.  Coming next another 8 core processor 
and another 16 gigs of RAM, to be followed by a final 32 gigs of RAM.

Of course in typical fashion, not thinking about what I was doing, I moved the RAID controller and 
the drives over to the new server only to discover that I had not detached the databases and they 
would not attach.  So I had to bring the old server back up, move the database files back over, 
attach and detach them, then move the files back to the new server, whereupon they all attached as 
expected.

So as of this AM, the new server is up and functioning, with my SVN server / repository, and all 
databases functioning.

I am planning on moving a couple of my main databases to the SSDs Raid 0 array.  These are read-only 
databases, I do not write to them under normal circumstances.  I will keep a current backup in case 
the Raid 0 array fails, but will work with them from the Raid 0 array on a daily basis.

Having the main working databases on SSDs in a Raid 0 configuration, as well as more cores and more 
memory should allow me to do some of what I do in a much faster time frame.  I do a lot of PK 
(autonumber) joins between tables, pulling multi-million record sets with data from each of the 
tables.  I am hoping that this kind of processing will be much faster than when the source disks 
were on rotating media.

We shall see.  I still have the old server and will use it to run the test on rotating media, while 
doing an identical test on SSD on the new server.  Of course I will not be testing just the effect 
of the SSD but rather the total speed increase of the entire system.

-- 
John W. Colby
www.ColbyConsulting.com