SQL server 2012 slow response

[wcfoods]

I  recently purchased an IBM x3850 server with dual 8 core processors, 256 GB ram, 8 900 GB 10,000 SAS hard drives that i setup with raid 10. I've installed ESXi 5.5 and everything is working. The first VM i installed was Windows server 2012 r2 with SQL server 2012. I first had 4 processors with 6 cores giving me 24 processors and 96 GB ram. I also setup vhds for data, transaction logs, and backup per your best practice list, and It still was slower than our existing physical server with dual 6 core processors and 72 GB ram. I've tried lowering the number of processors down to 4, then 8, tried setting NUMA to just 1 node, and nothing i seem to do seems to help. My thought was that we would definitely would notice a speed increase with this server and it seems to be going the other way. Any help with this would greatly be appreciated. Thanks

[vlho]

Hi,

have you controller with cache and battery and have you enabled write back cache mode?

Look here:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/477118

[wcfoods]

I wondered about that. The controller is the basic one that came with the server - M1015, and it doesn't have cache or anything on it. I had planned on getting the M5015, but didn't so that is my next thing i am trying.

[jrmunday]

Agreed with vlho ... this was my first thought.

What size disks are you using, and how many are in your RAID 10 group? Pity they are 10K and not 15K, but again I understand these cost more.

Do an expected calculation and then test to see what you actually get.

Cheers,

Jon

[vlho]

Hi,

sorry for bad link.

This is correct:

https://communities.vmware.com/thread/455976

[wcfoods]

It is 8 10k 900 GB drives. They are all part of the raid 10. So the first 4 on one card is on 1 array and the 2nd 4 on the 2nd card are the 2nd array.

[COS]

How is your RAID setup on your physical server?

Can you run a SQLIO test using random R/W to get some iops metrics then run it on your Virtual SQL server?

You're bottleneck at this point sounds like the 4 spindles per RAID controller.

I'm guessing the physical server has more spindles per RAID LUN?

[wcfoods]

All 8 disks are on 1 controller - and they are all part of a raid 10 configuration. I ordered a M5015 controller and i will wait and see if that fixes the problem. I would love to have used SSD but they are extremely expensive for the sizes i needed. The 15k drives would have been great, but with 300 GB being the largest, again, i wouldn't have enough space. My goal is to get 4 VMs on this server and eliminate 4 physical servers.