Hardware configuration SATA vs. SCSI

8 May 2006 6:22 PM

TurboTom

We are going to have Windows Server 2003 running desktop SQL with about 10
users.
Will there be a noticeable speed difference between 5 SATA 3Gb/s versus 4
SCSI drives in a raid 5 configuration?
I'm sure if I look at the numbers, SCSI will look much faster, but in actual
use, how would it appear?

Thanks,
Tom

8 May 2006 8:09 PM

Dave Patrick

I don't think raid 5 is generally recommended for SQL Server but better to
ask them here.

http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.sqlserver.server&cat=en_US_671e06d0-f20d-4bb3-9c6a-42c825ddb1dc&lang=en&cr=US

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

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8 May 2006 8:11 PM

Joshua Bolton

Remember the difference between token ring and a regular ethernet network?
How under load token ring just keeps plugging away but ethernet bogs down to
nothing?

It is my understanding its the same for scsi vs sata. SATA will bog down
under load whereas scsi will not. Sata does 40iops whereas scsi does 80iops.

For example I would consider sata for disk to disk backups. But would only
consider U320 scsi for database or achived document retrieval systems.

10 users does seem like much to me so sata maybe alright for your db.

8 May 2006 9:32 PM

Robert Moir

TurboTom wrote:

> We are going to have Windows Server 2003 running desktop SQL with
> about 10 users.
> Will there be a noticeable speed difference between 5 SATA 3Gb/s
> versus 4 SCSI drives in a raid 5 configuration?
> I'm sure if I look at the numbers, SCSI will look much faster, but in
> actual use, how would it appear?

Well if you put everything on a single raid 5 disk array then SQL server
will never be all that it can be. If possible try to split the OS & DB log
files onto their own mirrored pair of disks away from the actual database
file.

Other than that, I'd echo Joshua's comments about SATA vs. SCSI. SATA can
cope well when lightly to moderately loaded, but for continuous hard
charging use like you'd expect to see from any kind of SQL db, I'd buy SCSI
every time.

The load on the database might be more important than the exact number of
users - I have a group of 10 users who build absolutely fiendish queries
every time they boot up their machines, and another group of several hundred
who request one report a day which is generated once and then shared between
them.

--
--
Rob Moir, Microsoft MVP
Blog Site - http://www.robertmoir.com
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html
I'm always surprised at "professionals" who STILL have to be asked "Have you
checked (event viewer / syslog)".

8 May 2006 10:20 PM

Venger

"TurboTom" <Turbo***@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0E64C149-8E34-4C4D-B0A9-14BBECE76263@microsoft.com...
> We are going to have Windows Server 2003 running desktop SQL with about 10
> users.
> Will there be a noticeable speed difference between 5 SATA 3Gb/s versus 4
> SCSI drives in a raid 5 configuration?
> I'm sure if I look at the numbers, SCSI will look much faster, but in
> actual
> use, how would it appear?

Is one of those drives a hot spare? With a 5 drive RAID5, I wouldn't trust
anything on it without a hot spare sitting there...

I assume desktop SQL is... MSDE? If so, isn't there a performance ceiling at
5-users or somesuch on simultaneous access to an MSDE database? And a 2GB
size limit too... if you can live within those parameters, SATA vs. SCSI is
somewhat moot...

Venger

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