Optimal RAID setup for SQL server

Question

We have an SQL 2005 database backend for our website, currently about 10GB in size. There are a lot more reads than writes, though I don\'t have the exact statistics.

We

Answer 1

Two things,

The theory is RAID 1 gives you two drives for a read, but dont' think that equals two times the performance. As a matter of fact, it doesn't, usually the sequential read spee ends up being exactly the same as one drive. Surprising, but true....do real world tests, don't rely on theory.

With that said, I would go with two RAID 1...but not as you said, one for OS, and the other for data. I would have some small OS partition on one of them, but definately give both raids to sql server for data. Give sql server all the sets you can.

SQL Server can stripe across the pairs, you absolutely do not want to go with 0+1 despite what anyone here says. They are again looking at theoretical benchmarks, not understand that sql server can stripe all its data across the disks, and can do so in an optimized way.

Raid 1 is just for data redundancy...other than that, give as much as you can to sql server, and let it do its thing...its very good at what it does.

You have a 0+1 and break it into two raid 1....do real world testing, you'll be surprised at which is faster for sql server work.