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I am building a Windows 2008 R2 server which will host both Microsoft SQL databases and websites on IIS. Most likely a Dell R710.

I want to go with a RAID 10 for a mix of security and speed. I don't think I'm going to need too much space (databases are mostly text based, will be 1 GB or so at most).

Price-wise I can either choose 6 x 146 GB 15K RPM or 4 x 300 GB 15K RPM hard drives, there is barely any difference in price. The 4 x 300 obviously gives me a bit more space, but that space is most likely going to be unused anyways.

Therefore my question - should I go with the 6x146 or the 4x300 configuration? Are there any benefits to go for more smaller drives? If so, how significant are they?

Thanks!

AX1
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  • No common benefit to smaller drives; there are benefits to *more* drives under the right conditions. – Chris S Dec 08 '10 at 13:40

3 Answers3

10

Agreed with Tom in the first sense.

6x146GB of 15K RPM will give some nice IOPS, though. You'd have three axles of RAID 1 in a larger RAID 0 array, giving you three times the speed of a single drive for writes, and up to six for reads.

Jeff McJunkin
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The smaller dirve will give you a lot more IO budget. OTOH you may not need it. That simple,. According to your specs I would not even go with 4x150 but with 2. That naturally said only for the case that your assumptions about waht the server does are correct in the first place.

TomTom
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A DB so small should fit in cache, making HDD speed irrelevant.

Javier
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