i have a dell poweredge 2950 server with two SATA drives- one 80GB, one
500GB. i'm running windows server 2003 x64 and sql server 2005 x64. my
database is around 75GB (this is the size of the .mdf file). for this type
of scenario, is it possible to set up a RAID 0 configuration, and is this
advisable? i thought RAID 0 was the best option for my scenario since i'm
more concerned with high processing power, as opposed to data
security/redundancy for this machine. can someone point me in the right
direction as to where i can find more information setting this up? i know
this is a broad topic, but want to know if i'm at least on the right track.

i'm assuming i should use the dell openmanage server administrator to
configure this- but is this something that needs to be done at the time the
OS is installed, or can i configure RAID after the fact?

tia,

jt

NO.

With the limited drives, you are better with two drives (-not RAID 0), one
for the database files and one for the OS and Transaction Log file.And with
only 2 drives OR RAID 0, if a drive fails, your server will be down, and
there is the great probability of significant data loss.

As inexpensive as drives are, you 'should' get more drives before you do
anything!

--
Arnie Rowland, Ph.D.
Westwood Consulting, Inc

Most good judgment comes from experience.
Most experience comes from bad judgment.
- Anonymous


"JTL" <jt@clickstreamtech.com> wrote in message
news:O7cueQ12GHA.328@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>i have a dell poweredge 2950 server with two SATA drives- one 80GB, one
>500GB. i'm running windows server 2003 x64 and sql server 2005 x64. my
>database is around 75GB (this is the size of the .mdf file). for this type
>of scenario, is it possible to set up a RAID 0 configuration, and is this
>advisable? i thought RAID 0 was the best option for my scenario since i'm
>more concerned with high processing power, as opposed to data
>security/redundancy for this machine. can someone point me in the right
>direction as to where i can find more information setting this up? i know
>this is a broad topic, but want to know if i'm at least on the right track.
>
> i'm assuming i should use the dell openmanage server administrator to
> configure this- but is this something that needs to be done at the time
> the OS is installed, or can i configure RAID after the fact?
>
> tia,
>
> jt
>
>

If you are concerned with performance you should have more disks. You don't
give much info so I can talk specifics but you want to at least separate
your data from your logs onto different physical drives. If the db is 75GB
you may need more spindles depending on how you access the data. Why are you
not concerned with redundancy? Is this a read only db?

--
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP

"JTL" <jt@clickstreamtech.com> wrote in message
news:O7cueQ12GHA.328@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>i have a dell poweredge 2950 server with two SATA drives- one 80GB, one
>500GB. i'm running windows server 2003 x64 and sql server 2005 x64. my
>database is around 75GB (this is the size of the .mdf file). for this type
>of scenario, is it possible to set up a RAID 0 configuration, and is this
>advisable? i thought RAID 0 was the best option for my scenario since i'm
>more concerned with high processing power, as opposed to data
>security/redundancy for this machine. can someone point me in the right
>direction as to where i can find more information setting this up? i know
>this is a broad topic, but want to know if i'm at least on the right track.
>
> i'm assuming i should use the dell openmanage server administrator to
> configure this- but is this something that needs to be done at the time
> the OS is installed, or can i configure RAID after the fact?
>
> tia,
>
> jt
>
>