Dell POWEREDGE R720XD - Manual (Page 7)

Dell SMB Reference Configuration for Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Data Warehouse on
PowerEdge R720xd
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Refer to the Microsoft Fast track 4.0 Reference Guide for detailed recommendations on system
memory configuration.
Internal Storage Controller (PERC H710P Mini) Settings
The Dell PERC H710P Mini is an enterprise-level RAID controller that provides disk management
capabilities, high-availability, and security features in addition to improved performance of up to
6GB/s throughput. Figure 3 shows the management console accessible through the BIOS utility.
Figure 3. Virtual Disk Settings
Stripe element size
By default, the PERC H710P Mini creates virtual disks with a segment size of 64KB. During the Fast
Track validation testing, Dell tested stripe element sizes of 64KB and 256KB to compare and contrast
any performance improvements. For most workloads, the 64KB default size will provide an adequate
stripe element size. Dell recommends testing various stripe sizes depending on the workload
characteristics of your configuration.
Read policy
The default setting for the read policy on the PERC H710P Mini is “adaptive read ahead.” Configuration
was tested with “adaptive read ahead,” “No read ahead,” and “Read Ahead” settings. During testing,
we observed that the default setting (“adaptive read ahead”) gave the best performance.