Should I upgrade my HD ? (usage numbers)

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Should I upgrade my HD ? (usage numbers)

Author

Topic

mike123
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

1462 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-26 : 19:09:34

I'm running on 2 36gb SCSI drives in a RAID 1 configuration. I see the system slow down from time to time, but can't pinpoint the bottleneck. I've never used performance monitor for tracking physical disk performance, here are my numbers hopefully they paint a decent picture.

Thanks !
mike123

Counter / Last / Average / Minimum / Maximum

Pages/sec / 15.982 / 11.030 / 0.000 / 102.979

Avg Disk / 6.135 / 1.735 / 0.142 / 9.566
Queue Length

[CPU]Processor / 53.000 / 29.446 / 2.000 / 85.000
Time

%Disk Read / 586.875 / 162.643 / 12.722 / 928.553
Time

%Disk Time / 613.537 / 173.458 / 14.180 / 956.573

%Disk Write / 26.662 / 10.815 / 1.458 / 95.433
Time

%Idle Time / 13.241 / 50.418 / 0.000 / 88.453

Avg Disk / 5592.104 / 5628.356 / 3882.198 / 14048.000
Bytes Read

Avg Disk / 5652.317 / 5366.044 / 4111.876 / 8157.867
Bytes Xfer

Avg Disk / 5746.939 / 5099.945/ 4096.000/ 7697.356
Bytes Write

Avg Disk / 6.135 / 1.735 / 0.142 / 9.566
Queue Length

Avg Disk Read / 5.869 / 1.626 / 0.127 / 9.286
Queue Length

Avg Disk / 0.076 / 0.029 / 0.007 / 0.129
sec/Read

Avg Disk / 0.049 / 0.015 / 0.003 / 0.069
sec/Xfer

Avg Disk / 0.005 / 0.002 / 0.000 / 0.017
sec/Write

Avg Disk Write / 0.267 / 0.108 / 0.015 / 0.954
Queue Length

Current Disk Write / 2 / 2 / 0 / 23
Queue Length

Disk Bytes / 711371.0 / 604876.0 / 352188.4 / 1093429.0
/sec

Disk Read / 430095.885 / 319496.306 / 125927.4 / 757091.0
bytes /sec

Disk Reads / 76.911 / 56.765/ 15.997 / 113.978
/sec

Disk Transfers / 125.855 / 112.723 / 44.991 / 200.961
/sec

Disk Write / 281275.549 / 285379.810 / 143332.6 / 562073.6
Bytes /sec

Disk Writes / 48.944 / 55.957 / 27.955 / 98.982
/sec

[MEMORY]Pages/sec / 51.982/ 11.030/ 27.955 / 98.982

Split IO/sec / 10.987 / 7.404 / 27.955 / 98.982

tkizer
Almighty SQL Goddess

38200 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-27 : 14:41:02

http://www.sql-server-performance.com/performance_monitor_counters_io.asp

Tara

mike123
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

1462 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-27 : 18:26:51

thanks tara... looks like there wasnt much to analyze ....

I am basically debating whether to upgrade my drives from 10k to 15k, or change the RAID

This helps tho...

Thanks

derrickleggett
Pointy Haired Yak DBA

4184 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-27 : 20:10:03

If you can squeeze in four more drive, I would go with a RAID 10. The upgrade to 15k drives is big though and should reduce some of your queue lengths. Have you looked at the target server memory, total server memory, buffer cache hit ratio, and cache hit ratio?

Also, when you see the slowdowns, what counters are getting worse?

I'm assuming you're already looking at Profiler to see if you have anything running badly there???

MeanOldDBA
derrickleggett@hotmail.com

When life gives you a lemon, fire the DBA.

mike123
Master Smack Fu Yak Hacker

1462 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-28 : 01:45:27

Hi Derrick,

I am currently RAID 1

It looks like I will probably be upgrading to RAID 0+1 with 4x36gb 15k SCSI's.

What do you think of that? I have 6 drive bays and am going to use 4 for the RAID 0+1 and 1 drive for the IIS log, unless you strongly recommend something else.

I will look into your suggestions and see what I find.

Thanks alot!

mike123

derrickleggett
Pointy Haired Yak DBA

4184 Posts

Posted - 2004-09-28 : 04:54:23

That would be a pretty significant upgrade on disk speed. I would use RAID 10 instead of 0+1. Also, If you have 6 drive bays are you planning on having the OS on one drive and the IIS log on another? If so, I would just use RAID 1 on those and have both on the same drive. I don't like having anything without redundancy.

MeanOldDBA
derrickleggett@hotmail.com

When life gives you a lemon, fire the DBA.

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