Home > Workload Solutions > SQL Server > White Papers > SQL Server 2019 Best Practices on PowerEdge Servers and PowerStore T Model Arrays > PowerStore: Volume Performance Policy
The volume performance can be managed in the PowerStore storage array by adjusting the performance policy. Selecting a performance policy sets a relative priority for the volume by using a share based QoS system that prioritizes the higher performance policy when resources are constrained. The performance policy does not impact system behavior unless some volumes have a low performance policy setting and other volumes are set to medium or high.
Table 12. Best practice category
Category | PowerStore Storage |
Product | PowerStore 5000T |
Type of best practice | Performance Optimization |
Day and value | Day 3, Fine Tuning |
Overview
A performance policy specifies I/O performance requirements for PowerStore storage resources. PowerStore provides three predefined performance policies:
To determine if changing the volume performance policy provides value, it was tested against the baseline using the default value (medium). In the baseline configuration for the database volumes, the SQL data, SQL log, temp data, temp log, and SQL backup volumes were configured with a medium-performance policy. For this test case, the SQL Data volumes were configured with a high-performance policy. The following table shows which volumes were configured with a high-performance policy.
Table 13. Volume performance policy settings
Volume Group | Volume Name | VMware Datastore | Volume Performance Policy | Notes |
sql_vm1_db1 | sql-vm1-db1-data1 | sql-vm1-db1-data1-ds | High | SQL Data/Log |
sql-vm1-db1-data2 | sql-vm1-db1-data2-ds | High | ||
sql-vm1-db1-data3 | sql-vm1-db1-data3-ds | High | ||
sql-vm1-db1-data4 | sql-vm1-db1-data4-ds | High | ||
sql-vm1-db1-log1 | sql-vm1-db1-log1-ds | High | ||
sql_vm1_db1_temp | sql-vm1-db1-temp-data1 | sql-vm1-db1-temp-data1-ds | High | Temp Data/Log |
sql-vm1-db1-temp-log1 | sql-vm1-db1-temp-log1-ds | High | ||
sql_vm1_db1_backup | sql-vm1-db1-backup1 | sql-vm1-db1-backup1-ds | Medium | Backup |
Recommendation
Changing the performance policy to high for the SQL Data, SQL log, SQL Temp DB, and SQL Temp Log volumes resulted in no performance gain. Considering these results, this best practice is considered as a Day 3, Fine Tuning practice and benefit only if there are volumes with mixed performance policy on the array.
Additional resources
Dell PowerStore Manager Overview, Storage: Volumes
Dell PowerStore: Best Practices Guide, Block storage resources