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From: Björn Pettersson on 1 Feb 2010 15:00
Hi,

I have read a lot regarding the performance gain that can be achieved
when aligning volumes properly,
but I haven't found any information regarding alignment of a striped
volume (that consists of dynamic disks).
Is the alignment properly set by default on dynamic disks? I tried to
set the alignment using the parameter align=1024 when creating the
striped volume in diskpart, but it was not a valid parameter, only
seem to work on basic disks. Please let me know how these things work!

Thanks,
Björn
From: RCan on 1 Feb 2010 15:27
Hi Bj�rn,

as far as I'm aware disk alignment can/should also be used with dynamic
disks. And yes it depends on your I/O pattern of your application but it is
generally recommended for I/O intensive applications like SQL/Exchange...

Are these local volumes or are they provided by a SAN ?

If you are already using Windows 2008 it does automatically out-of-the-box
the right alignment for you. I would recommend the following articles to get
more details to this topic :

Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Server
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx

Disk Partition Alignment (Sector Alignment) for SQL Server @ Jimmy May Blog
http://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2008/10/14/disk-partition-alignment-for-sql-server-slide-deck.aspx

Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for Windows
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/subsys_perf.mspx

Hope that helps.

Regards
Ramazan

"Bj�rn Pettersson" <bjopette(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:dbf8682c-51d4-41b9-9644-819ad6f96e09(a)g1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
> Hi,
>
> I have read a lot regarding the performance gain that can be achieved
> when aligning volumes properly,
> but I haven't found any information regarding alignment of a striped
> volume (that consists of dynamic disks).
> Is the alignment properly set by default on dynamic disks? I tried to
> set the alignment using the parameter align=1024 when creating the
> striped volume in diskpart, but it was not a valid parameter, only
> seem to work on basic disks. Please let me know how these things work!
>
> Thanks,
> Bj�rn

From: Björn Pettersson on 8 Feb 2010 16:14
On 1 Feb, 21:27, "RCan" <noos...(a)arcor.de> wrote:
> Hi Bj rn,
>
> as far as I'm aware disk alignment can/should also be used with dynamic
> disks. And yes it depends on your I/O pattern of your application but it is
> generally recommended for I/O intensive applications like SQL/Exchange...
>
> Are these local volumes or are they provided by a SAN ?
>
> If you are already using Windows 2008 it does automatically out-of-the-box
> the right alignment for you. I would recommend the following articles to get
> more details to this topic :
>
> Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Serverhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx
>
> Disk Partition Alignment (Sector Alignment) for SQL Server @ Jimmy May Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2008/10/14/disk-partition-alig...
>
> Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for Windowshttp://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/subsys_perf.mspx
>
> Hope that helps.
>
> Regards
> Ramazan
>
> "Bj rn Pettersson" <bjope...(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> news:dbf8682c-51d4-41b9-9644-819ad6f96e09(a)g1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
>
> > Hi,
>
> > I have read a lot regarding the performance gain that can be achieved
> > when aligning volumes properly,
> > but I haven't found any information regarding alignment of a striped
> > volume (that consists of dynamic disks).
> > Is the alignment properly set by default on dynamic disks? I tried to
> > set the alignment using the parameter align=1024 when creating the
> > striped volume in diskpart, but it was not a valid parameter, only
> > seem to work on basic disks. Please let me know how these things work!
>
> > Thanks,
> > Bj rn

Thanks for your answer :) Great links, but I had already read them.
None of them cover what I need to know about dynamic disks :/

The disks are on a SAN. Unfortunately Windows Server 2008 is not an
option as the customer do not want to make any changes whatsoever in
their environment. The server is running on VMware, and I have read
about a method that possibly could be used to align the volume. If I
mount the disk on a Windows 2008 server, which has the 1024 MB
alignment by default, create the volume, and then dismount the .vmdk-
files, I should be able to mount them on my Windows 2003 server and
import them as foreign disks, as explained on:
http://serverfault.com/questions/31304/how-to-create-dynamic-volume-in-stripe-configuration-aligned-to-1024

If the above trick works, it's an option, but I would prefer being
able to do this on my Windows 2003 server without the need of using an
extra Windows 2008 server for creating disks. I tried running dmdiag
(which according to Jimmy May is the only reliable tool for dynamic
disks), but it hangs in the middle of the output (unfortunately before
it displays the dynamic disk information). What I wanted to achieve
with dmdiag was to see if my newly created striped (dynamic) volume
was properly designed from start, but as dmdiag failed on me, I still
am clueless. Tried running a wmi-script, but I was unable to figure
out which disk id's that was mapped to what disks.

From: Björn Pettersson on 8 Feb 2010 16:16
On 8 Feb, 22:14, Björn Pettersson <bjope...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> On 1 Feb, 21:27, "RCan" <noos...(a)arcor.de> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Hi Bj rn,
>
> > as far as I'm aware disk alignment can/should also be used with dynamic
> > disks. And yes it depends on your I/O pattern of your application but it is
> > generally recommended for I/O intensive applications like SQL/Exchange....
>
> > Are these local volumes or are they provided by a SAN ?
>
> > If you are already using Windows 2008 it does automatically out-of-the-box
> > the right alignment for you. I would recommend the following articles to get
> > more details to this topic :
>
> > Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL Serverhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx
>
> > Disk Partition Alignment (Sector Alignment) for SQL Server @ Jimmy May Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2008/10/14/disk-partition-alig....
>
> > Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for Windowshttp://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/subsys_perf.mspx
>
> > Hope that helps.
>
> > Regards
> > Ramazan
>
> > "Bj rn Pettersson" <bjope...(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
>
> >news:dbf8682c-51d4-41b9-9644-819ad6f96e09(a)g1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
>
> > > Hi,
>
> > > I have read a lot regarding the performance gain that can be achieved
> > > when aligning volumes properly,
> > > but I haven't found any information regarding alignment of a striped
> > > volume (that consists of dynamic disks).
> > > Is the alignment properly set by default on dynamic disks? I tried to
> > > set the alignment using the parameter align=1024 when creating the
> > > striped volume in diskpart, but it was not a valid parameter, only
> > > seem to work on basic disks. Please let me know how these things work!
>
> > > Thanks,
> > > Bj rn
>
> Thanks for your answer :) Great links, but I had already read them.
> None of them cover what I need to know about dynamic disks :/
>
> The disks are on a SAN. Unfortunately Windows Server 2008 is not an
> option as the customer do not want to make any changes whatsoever in
> their environment. The server is running on VMware, and I have read
> about a method that possibly could be used to align the volume. If I
> mount the disk on a Windows 2008 server, which has the 1024 MB
> alignment by default, create the volume, and then dismount the .vmdk-
> files, I should be able to mount them on my Windows 2003 server and
> import them as foreign disks, as explained on:http://serverfault.com/questions/31304/how-to-create-dynamic-volume-i...
>
> If the above trick works, it's an option, but I would prefer being
> able to do this on my Windows 2003 server without the need of using an
> extra Windows 2008 server for creating disks. I tried running dmdiag
> (which according to Jimmy May is the only reliable tool for dynamic
> disks), but it hangs in the middle of the output (unfortunately before
> it displays the dynamic disk information). What I wanted to achieve
> with dmdiag was to see if my newly created striped (dynamic) volume
> was properly designed from start, but as dmdiag failed on me, I still
> am clueless. Tried running a wmi-script, but I was unable to figure
> out which disk id's that was mapped to what disks.

Correction. 1024 KB, not MB ;)
From: RCan on 8 Feb 2010 16:33
Hi Bj�rn,

this topic is really a religion :-) you can talk with 10 different senior
storage/sql admins and 10 of them will tell you different tools/best
practices for the right disk alignment.

Your clue with Windows 2008 is really good, as W2K8 does automatically set
the right offset.
If you are interested to get more details possibly the followings helps you
:
https://www.equallogic.com/uploadedFiles/Resources/Tech_Reports/tr-ms-sector-align_TR1012_v2-0.pdf

As I said before, it is really important what kind of SAN you use here and
if your SAN vendor does also set an offset for you (like EVA).

PS : Jimmy May is the man here....
"Bj�rn Pettersson" <bjopette(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
news:e836bf65-0fb0-480a-b5ef-93f429f2aac9(a)l19g2000yqb.googlegroups.com...
> On 8 Feb, 22:14, Bj�rn Pettersson <bjope...(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> On 1 Feb, 21:27, "RCan" <noos...(a)arcor.de> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> > Hi Bj rn,
>>
>> > as far as I'm aware disk alignment can/should also be used with dynamic
>> > disks. And yes it depends on your I/O pattern of your application but
>> > it is
>> > generally recommended for I/O intensive applications like
>> > SQL/Exchange...
>>
>> > Are these local volumes or are they provided by a SAN ?
>>
>> > If you are already using Windows 2008 it does automatically
>> > out-of-the-box
>> > the right alignment for you. I would recommend the following articles
>> > to get
>> > more details to this topic :
>>
>> > Disk Partition Alignment Best Practices for SQL
>> > Serverhttp://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd758814.aspx
>>
>> > Disk Partition Alignment (Sector Alignment) for SQL Server @ Jimmy May
>> > Bloghttp://blogs.msdn.com/jimmymay/archive/2008/10/14/disk-partition-alig...
>>
>> > Disk Subsystem Performance Analysis for
>> > Windowshttp://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/subsys_perf.mspx
>>
>> > Hope that helps.
>>
>> > Regards
>> > Ramazan
>>
>> > "Bj rn Pettersson" <bjope...(a)gmail.com> wrote in message
>>
>> >news:dbf8682c-51d4-41b9-9644-819ad6f96e09(a)g1g2000yqi.googlegroups.com...
>>
>> > > Hi,
>>
>> > > I have read a lot regarding the performance gain that can be achieved
>> > > when aligning volumes properly,
>> > > but I haven't found any information regarding alignment of a striped
>> > > volume (that consists of dynamic disks).
>> > > Is the alignment properly set by default on dynamic disks? I tried to
>> > > set the alignment using the parameter align=1024 when creating the
>> > > striped volume in diskpart, but it was not a valid parameter, only
>> > > seem to work on basic disks. Please let me know how these things
>> > > work!
>>
>> > > Thanks,
>> > > Bj rn
>>
>> Thanks for your answer :) Great links, but I had already read them.
>> None of them cover what I need to know about dynamic disks :/
>>
>> The disks are on a SAN. Unfortunately Windows Server 2008 is not an
>> option as the customer do not want to make any changes whatsoever in
>> their environment. The server is running on VMware, and I have read
>> about a method that possibly could be used to align the volume. If I
>> mount the disk on a Windows 2008 server, which has the 1024 MB
>> alignment by default, create the volume, and then dismount the .vmdk-
>> files, I should be able to mount them on my Windows 2003 server and
>> import them as foreign disks, as explained
>> on:http://serverfault.com/questions/31304/how-to-create-dynamic-volume-i...
>>
>> If the above trick works, it's an option, but I would prefer being
>> able to do this on my Windows 2003 server without the need of using an
>> extra Windows 2008 server for creating disks. I tried running dmdiag
>> (which according to Jimmy May is the only reliable tool for dynamic
>> disks), but it hangs in the middle of the output (unfortunately before
>> it displays the dynamic disk information). What I wanted to achieve
>> with dmdiag was to see if my newly created striped (dynamic) volume
>> was properly designed from start, but as dmdiag failed on me, I still
>> am clueless. Tried running a wmi-script, but I was unable to figure
>> out which disk id's that was mapped to what disks.
>
> Correction. 1024 KB, not MB ;)

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