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Creating SMB file shares for SQL Server deployment is a simple process with three basic steps. These steps include creating a NAS server, the file system, and the SMB share. Dell Unisphere™ contains setup wizards that walk through the entire process. However, there are some important considerations to keep in mind for SQL Server workloads. These recommendations are specific to hosting SQL Server databases on Dell Unity XT storage and do not necessarily apply to using SMB file shares as backup files.
The configuration of the NAS server has the greatest impact on the performance of the SMB file shares. When configuring the NAS server, this is where the storage pool and storage processor are selected. Since the NAS server resides on the selected storage processor, balancing NAS servers across both storage processors is important for efficient system utilization and best performance. A NAS server can only use resources on the storage processor that it is running on. A minimum of two NAS are required to balance workload across both storage processors.
Network interfaces are configured on the NAS server and are important to performance and availability. Multiple network interfaces are available for performance and redundancy. These interfaces map to a specific I/O port and multiple NAS servers can share the same port.
When configuring the file system for SQL Server, make sure both the Sync Writes Enabled and Oplocks Enabled settings are turned on. These SMB protocol settings are found under the advanced file system properties. These are the only two SMB protocol settings that are recommended for use with SQL Server.
Enable the Continuous Availability option in the SMB properties when configuring an SMB share for SQL Server. This option, along with the SMB protocol settings Sync Writes Enabled and Oplocks Enabled ensures that the file handles used by SQL Server will persist in the event of a NAS server failover to the other storage processor.
When creating file-based VMware datastores for SQL Server on file-based systems, select SQL Server for the host I/O size. This will result in a 64 KB block size, which is recommended for SQL Server.