Off-topic: Storage and RAID array for database geeks

If you’re like me, you enjoy random geeking with Microsoft SQL Server, and since most of our geeking is done at home you probably have some sort of setup for research, experimentation, or just for fun.  I am lucky to have a full-blown Active Directory domain similar to what you might have at work, along with three small servers running Windows Server 2008 R2, and one with Hyper-V installed.  I also have about 2 TB of storage laying around, most of it slow and not redundant.  One thing that you need for doing some heavy-duty stuff in SQL Server is a fast disk I/O subsystem;  obviously it is impractical or unaffordable to have anything like what one might have at the workplace, but we can have a really nice RAID setup for a nominal cost like the one that I just built this afternoon.  I’m amazed how inexpensive hardware is these days, and a super cool little setup for large databases for experimentation, proof-of-concept, presentations, performance tuning, additional portable storage, or .vhds is what I want to discuss in this blog post.

Essentially, you need only four components to create a little external RAID array:

1. Two 2.5” disks – I picked up two Hitachi Travelstar disks, which are pretty nice because they have a three-year warranty.  You pay on average $3/year for the warranty over the cheaper model, so I went with these.  Mine are 250GB, but you can certainly buy larger ones (right now up to 750GB at www.newegg.com).  I bought mine at Frys, by the way.
   
   
2. One eSATA II PCIe i/e card – this is to “easily add internal and external Serial ATA II (3 Gb/s) ports to PCIe equipped desktops”. Since my current hardware lacks an eSATA port, I opted to buy a PCIe card to provide eSATA connectivity.  As an option, I could use the USB port included, but for my purposes, eSATA provided the performance I need, and we’re all about speed here.  I got a SIIG for super-cheap!

1. One 2.5” double drive mobile rack for SATA HDD/SSD drives – This is the case that will serve as our RAID switch, and can handle two drives.  If you want to spend the extra money, you can get these for a reasonable price up to 6,8,10+ bays as well, and doing this you can actually do various RAID levels for some very cool stuff. (Mine holds two disks, so I can do JBOD, RAID O, and RAID 1, but I saw a few there that do RAID 5, 10, etc.).  Because the RAID controller is built-in to this enclosure, it can also do various splitting of RAID so you don’t have to use the entire disk space for just one RAID level.  I bought this one and it’s perfect for what I’m going for. Also, if you decide to get SSD, this handles those as well.  Remember – we’re talking true hardware RAID here, not software RAID that you build in disk administrator in Windows.

Once you get all of this stuff, plug your PCIe card in, fire up the drivers, plug the disks, set the dip switches to what RAID level you desire, and you have a RAID array in a box the size of an external drive!  Awesome!!!  You can use it locally, or get a nice case for it and take it with you to work, clients, presentations, wherever.  Load up SQL Server database files, .bak files, .vhds, etc.  If you decide to go portable with a laptop, you will probably need an eSATA express card for your laptop express slot, also very reasonably priced.  Performance?  This thing should run 2-times as fast using RAID 0 as the external hard drive that you use now. And cost?  About $200.00 for my setup, and I’m lucky in that I get to bill my employer for most of it :))

If you put one together, give me a shout and let me know how it goes!

Thanks for reading,

Lee

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