Monthly Archives: August 2011

SQL Server Hardware Choices Made Easy

Posted on August 28, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Redgate has released a free eBook that I wrote called SQL Server Hardware Choices Made Easy. This is basically a compilation of the month long series I wrote in April 2011, called A SQL Server Hardware Nugget A Day, along … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware, Processors, Storage Subsystems | Tagged | 6 Comments

New Dell Precision M4600 Mobile Workstation

Posted on August 27, 2011 by Glenn Berry

After a very long wait, I finally received my new company laptop this past week, which is a very fast Dell Precision M4600. This particular unit has the 2.3GHz Core i7-2820QM quad-core processor, with 8MB of L3 cache. It uses … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware, Processors | Tagged | 6 Comments

A Couple of Data Compression Tricks in SQL Server 2008

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Glenn Berry

As I have said several times before, I am a big fan of data compression in SQL Server 2008 and above. Data compression is an Enterprise Edition only feature that was added to SQL Server 2008, and enhanced with Unicode … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2 | Tagged | 8 Comments

SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM Cumulative Update 9

Posted on August 18, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Microsoft has released Cumulative Update 9 for SQL Server 2008 R2 RTM, which is Build 10.50.1804.0. I count 26 fixes in this Cumulative Update, which is for the RTM branch of SQL Server 2008 R2. Remember, this is completely separate … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, SQL Server 2008 R2 | 3 Comments

SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Cumulative Update 2

Posted on August 16, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Microsoft has released SQL Server 2008 R2 SP1 Cumulative Update 2, which is Build 10.50.2772.0. I count 14 fixes in the KB for this Cumulative Update. The most interesting one in my opinion is: FIX: Recovery takes longer than expected … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, SQL Server 2008 R2 | Tagged | Leave a comment

Gradually Deleting Data in SQL Server

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Glenn Berry

If you have a situation where you have a very large table in SQL Server, where you need to periodically delete tens of millions of rows of data, there are several ways to do it. If you have a maintenance … Continue reading →

Posted in SQL Server 2005, SQL Server 2008, SQL Server 2008 R2, SQL Server Denali | 23 Comments

Configuring, Benchmarking and Validating an I/O Subsystem for SQL Server, Part 1

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Glenn Berry

One of the main projects I have been working on lately is designing and implementing a completely new data and storage infrastructure for a high volume, 24×7 online environment. Some of the goals of this effort include improving OLTP performance, … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware, Processors, SQL Server 2008 R2, Storage Subsystems | 14 Comments

Microsoft SQL Server Denali CTP 3 Product Guide

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Microsoft has released a Product Guide for SQL Server Denali CTP3, which has datasheets, white papers, technical presentations, demonstrations, and links to videos that will help you evaluate Microsoft SQL Server Denali. You can get to Books Online for SQL … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, SQL Server Denali | Tagged | Leave a comment

Corsair 16GB Flash Voyager USB 3.0 Review

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Glenn Berry

I bought a little Corsair Flash Voyager USB 3.0 16GB USB Flash Drive at Micro Center yesterday, since most of my machines now have USB 3.0 ports. It is also available online from places like New Egg and Amazon For … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware | Tagged | 4 Comments

Two New TPC-E Submissions

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Glenn Berry

Two new TPC-E OLTP Benchmark Submissions have shown up in the last month or so since I last recapped three recent submissions back on June 15. The TPC-E benchmark is a very useful comparison and sizing tool for OLTP workloads. … Continue reading →

Posted in Computer Hardware, SQL Server 2008 R2, Windows Server 2008 R2 | Tagged , , | 2 Comments