RE: Back to the RAID question

["Jones, John \(US\)" <John.Jones@xxxxxxxxxx>]

SQL Server 2000 doesn't, to my knowledge, support dbs on network drives.
Can't say about the latest release.

Walden's partitioning setup does give pause for consideration.  Since
your server isn't really serving that much data and is more app-focused,
try splitting your workload:

Drive C: a mirrored set of drives containing the OS + swap file.
Drive D: a mirrored set of drives containing your apps & data.

Or if you get 6 drives do 3 mirrored pairs:

C: for OS
D: for apps
E: for data & swap

Normally you'd segregate swap from OS but if your apps will do more IO
on an average basis than your OS, this setup may make more sense.

It also give you better options for backups: Entire C: drive for the OS
and then do regular backups of the D: drive since that's where the
frequently changing objects will reside.

Also, when looking at benchmarks, look at seek times vs. sustained
transfer rates.  STR is mostly important for large block transfers like
video files; program objects tend to be small so a fast seek time is
more important.