Help me choose a RAID level combination for a SQL Server 2008 instance

I am going to rebuild one IBM 3400 server from scratch. This server is dedicated to a SQL Server 2008 instance running on Windows 2008 R2.

I am going to make new RAID configuration. I have 6 SCSI 73 GB drives inside the machine and an IBM ServerRAID 8K controler. What would be a good way to set the RAID levels? Should I have two, three or one field on my controler?

I am considering to make one of following solutions:

• Use all the disk and make a RAID 10 pool.

• Use 4 disks for a RAID 1e pool and use it to store the database data and OS, and use the other 2 disks in a RAID 0 pool and use that to store the database logs.

• Some other combination.

Is a larger stripe unit size better?

This server will be a subscriber to a replicated database. Its primary task is going to be reporting and data retrieval, with only the replication agent making writes. The size of the database is around 90 GB.

I vote for option 1. Bear in mind that RAID 0 means "no protection" - do your logs matter? (yes they do).

It also has the benefit of simplicity

The SQL Server docs say:


For optimized I/O parallelism, use 64 KB or 256 KB stripe size.

But it is usually good to go with the controller default IMO

StackExchange Database Administrators Q#7773, answer score: 6