Troubleshooting SQL Server Storage Problems

There is a setting which is available within Cisco Fiber Channel switches that I ran across while configuring some new Cisco MDS switches that looked great for security. The setting is called "globalEnforcePriv" and the basic idea as I understand it is that it globally enforces privacy on all the accounts on the switch. Read on to see how it shot me in the foot....Read the rest of entry >>

No... Oh you wanted more information than that? OK Here goes......Read the rest of entry >>

An awful lot of rain half way around the world is keeping me from getting hard drives delivered to a data center in New Jersey. ...Read the rest of entry >>

The answer to the question here will depend greatly on what storage platforms you have available to you. Assuming that you have some sort of storage array which supports replication to a remote data center you have some pretty neat options available to you....Read the rest of entry >>

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In short, yes. The LUN or disk which hosts the backups is probably the disk which needs the most write performance....Read the rest of entry >>

Knowing which counters can be trusted to give you valid information and which counters can't be trusted is very important to properly monitoring and troubleshooting storage and Microsoft SQL Server....Read the rest of entry >>

So a few weeks ago I got a nice little present in the mail from Crucial. It was one of their nice new(ish) M4 SSDs with a massive 256 Gigs of free space. Here's a review of my experience with the drive so far......Read the rest of entry >>

This is really an it depends question. There are a variety of things which can influence which technology you select....Read the rest of entry >>

While it isn't the most common place that a performance bottleneck can happen, the fiber channel switches or Ethernet switches if you are using iSCSI or Fiber Channel Over Ethernet (FCoE) can become a performance bottleneck. The switches which run the network that the data travels over, reguardless of the technology involved can become a bottleneck....Read the rest of entry >>