HP SAN P4000. Disk alignment for SQL Database VM on VMware version 4.1

[JLF175_1]

Hi,

I've been asked by my boss to prepare a new Windows 2003 SP2 to run a SQL 2005 database.  According to the specs from the software developers which will be using this server the VM will need to have a boot partition, 2 separate drives for each MDF file and one drive for the log files of the two databases.

My question is what, if any, special configuration is required for the database partitions (both log and database). Do I need to use diskpart and align the drives or does the P4000 get around those issues? If so, what alignment should I give it?

I have not done disk partition in quite some time but I thought these steps explained it well enough:

http://www.bitcon.be/?p=421

The databases themselves aren't that big but I want to ensure we're giving it maximum performance.

Thanks!

-JLF

[Steve Burkett]

Yes you do for Windows 2003. (Feel sorry for ya, 2008 is much nicer and doesn't require disk aligning!)

Check out these docs:

HP P4000 SAN Solutions - Configuring Windows 2003 Disk Partitions for Optimal Alignment with HP P4000 Storage

Best Practices for Enabling Microsoft SQL Server with SANiQ

(used to be a bunch of Best Practice documents on the HP site for various applications, but can't seem to find those now...)