SQL Server Performance - DL380G4 vs. DL385

[sgunelius]

Has anyone out there seen any good performance comparisons for W2K3/SQL on the DL380 G4 vs. DL385 platforms? We're in the process of selecting a platform and a quad-processor server like the DL500 series is probably overkill, so the DL300 series with SAS is our candidate.

[sgunelius]

I somehow lost some of the original post, so here it is in its entirety:

Has anyone out there seen any good performance comparisons for W2K3/SQL on the DL380 G4 vs. DL385 platforms? We're in the process of selecting a platform and a quad-processor server like the DL500 series is probably overkill, so the DL300 series with SAS is our candidate.

I've worked with Opteron-based DLs, but only supporting ESX Server, not as a SQL database platform. Can anyone provide some feedback or experience with the DL385 in this capacity? Thank you in advance for your responses.

Scott

[Carlos_61]

check this link:
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/ss/proliant/dl385-models.html

and

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/pscmisc/vac/us/en/ss/proliant/dl380g4-models.html

anyway, it depends of memory size, hdds, smart array controller, speed of scsi hdds, etc

[sgunelius]

Carlos,

Thanks for the comparison information. I had priced out an identical configuration for the DL380 G4 (2 dual-core Intel Xeon processors) and DL385 (2 dual-core AMD Opteron processors). Both models would have 5GB of PC3200 memory. I selected the SAS model for both, so they would be using the Smart Array P600 controller and a full complement (8) of 36GB SAS SFF drives. There was less than $1000 difference between the price of the two, so I could go either way from a cost perspective.

Now I'm just trying to determine the value/performance aspect and that's where I'm hoping someone with first-hand experience can provide. Have you performed any testing against either platform with SQL or would you know where I might find some comparative performance data? I know TPC.org has done some, but am always wary of how the results may be skewed. Thank you.

Scott

[jspiga]

I can't speak on behalf of the performance of SQL Server, but the people at Oracle that we've been speaking to have recommended us go with a DL385 with as much RAM as we can shove in the systems for our database server - and their justification makes a fair amount of sense.

Opterons have an inherant advantage over Xeons for database performance due to the HyperTransport bus and memory controllers onboard each CPU. Memory latency is significantly lower as a result which produces faster query times assuming that all data is already in RAM.

By adding the appropriate amount of RAM for your application, you should be able to minimise the amount of disk access resulting in a nicely performing database.