MS SQL or Exchange Storage Tuning Question

[nicholas1982]

Does anyone know how to best tune storage for SQL or Exchange?

We create 2TB LUNS using 8 x 300GB SAS disks on a IBM DS3400 FC SAN.

1) When creating the array from the IBM storage manager, what segment size should we use? the only ones listed are 128KB or 256KB. (512KB can be done using CLI)

2) What VMFS block size should be used? Can this affect SQL disk performance?

3) Is there any special NTFS formatting required within the OS (Windows Server 2003) to acheive better disk performance?

Any advice or directions would be appreciated.

Regards

Nicholas

[demean0r · Accepted solution]

Reading posts from various virtualization experts the block size of VMFS has little impact on performance. If you will have virtual disks greater than 256 GB then a larger block size would be best.

Also be sure to create the VMFS partition with Virtual Center as this will automatically align the VMFS.

You will need to align your patitions in Windows Server 2003 for best performance. VMware has a guide that can be referenced here:

[LucasAlbers]

1.) no comment.

2.) doesn't matter. no really it doesnt.

3. sql server data stores like large cluster sizes 64k. Interesting...should it match the cluster size of your underlying io subsystem. Don't know.

Use windows 2008 it starts aligned, in any case the alignment DOES NOT MATTER for the OS, only the high volume data disk.