We used a minimal storage configuration for our Microsoft SQL Server instance. Dell Technologies’ dedicated Microsoft customer team can work closely with our customers to configure databases for maximum performance and protection.
Table 11. Microsoft SQL Server on PowerFlex
Volume name |
VM disk configuration |
Description |
Size (GB) |
Number of volumes |
Total size (GB) |
TM_VM_SQL_OS |
VMFS |
Windows Enterprise Server |
800 |
1 |
800 |
TM_VM_SQL_STG |
VMFS |
Data files |
600 |
2 |
1,200 |
TM_VM_SQL_LOG |
VMFS |
Log files |
50 |
1 |
50 |
TM_VM_SQL_TEMPDB |
VMFS |
Temporary files |
500 |
1 |
500 |
The volume groups and storage volumes used with SQL Server consist of the following:
- Guest VM OS—We installed Windows Server 2019 Datacenter evaluation edition in a VMware File System (VMFS) virtual disk file.
Note: The remaining volumes use VMware Raw Device Mapping (RDM). RDM points the virtual machine directly to the PowerFlex LUN, instead of a virtual disk file.
- SQL Server data files—Database files contain the database objects and data in the database. The data files were distributed across the two volumes using best practices guidelines.
- SQL Server logs—Logs are filled with information that is required to recover the database.
- The tempdb—The tempdb system is a global resource that contains temporary tables, indexes, and other objects. In this solution, we created eight tempdb files to address possible contention issues.
