Home > Storage > PowerStore > Databases and Data Analytics > Dell PowerStore: Microsoft SQL Server Best Practices > External SQL Server hosts
PowerStore presents storage to external hosts through either block or file interfaces. Block storage is commonly used for SQL Server workloads due to the various speeds and protocols that are offered which make it ideal for performance. With PowerStoreOS 2.0, PowerStore supports 25 GbE and 32 Gb Fibre Channel (FC) and NVMe over Fibre Channel (NVMe/FC). These options are recommended for SQL Server high-bandwidth storage workloads such as analytics that can generate a large amount of large block I/O. Instructions and best practices for configuring hosts can be found in the Dell PowerStore Host Configuration Guide at Dell.com/powerstoredocs. File storage (SMB) can also be used in environments running SQL Server on Windows.
For PowerStore T model appliances, follow recommendations for configuring external hosts in the Dell PowerStore Host Configuration Guide. In addition, when running SQL Server on virtual machines with VMware ESXi hosts, review the guidance in the Dell PowerStore Virtualization Infrastructure Guide and Dell PowerStore: VMware vSphere Best Practices white paper.
PowerStore supports boot-from-SAN for environments that want to further virtualize storage resources. In addition to the storage virtualization benefits, Boot-from-SAN can also be used to protect the operating-system configuration and allow for quick recovery. This configuration can be beneficial in environments where the recovery time objective (RTO) is strict.