Pagefile on SAN

[Guest JamesRussel]

Hi,

 

can anyone advise what are the possibiliities to have the pagefile on a SAN

volume?

1. is it possible?

2. whats the advantage?

3. what is the disadvantage

thanks,

--

JamesRussel

Cebu

[Guest John John]

Re: Pagefile on SAN

 

JamesRussel wrote:

> Hi,

>

> can anyone advise what are the possibiliities to have the pagefile on a SAN

> volume?

> 1. is it possible?

 

Yes.

> 2. whats the advantage?

 

Not many that I know of.

> 3. what is the disadvantage

 

Pagefile latency, most of the documentation with regards to pagefile

latency on servers that boot on SAN recommend that the pagefile be

stored on a local disk to avoid problems. The system needs reliable

access to the pagefile and having it on a local disk will ensure the

fastest reliable access and the best possible performance for the server.

 

Is/are your server(s) now booting from SAN? I take it that they are not

but if they are contact your hardware vendor for further help and

recommendations. If the servers are not booting from SAN then you

should forget about placing the pagefile on SAN, it will only add

significant complexities to your setup and will not provide any real

benefits that I can think of. If your aim is to improve paging

performance then you should place the pagefile on a fast separate

dedicated physical hard disk on a dedicated controller.

 

I should tell you that I have no hands on experience with booting from

SAN technology, my answers here are from reading about the technology

over the last few years. Booting from SAN is relatively new, changes

and improvements are always being implemented, but as far as I know at

the present time placing the pagefile on a SAN is usually not a

recommended practice, others with hands on experience and with a broader

knowledge of current developments with SAN and booting from SAN may

offer different suggestions.

 

John

[Guest JamesRussel]

Re: Pagefile on SAN

 

thank you very much John, this is a very good information. we had this in

mind because the local drives are running out of disk space and it was just

an idea what would happened if pagefile is on SAN, server is not booting from

SAN.

 

thanks,

--

JamesRussel

Cebu

 

 

"John John" wrote:

> JamesRussel wrote:

>

> > Hi,

> >

> > can anyone advise what are the possibiliities to have the pagefile on a SAN

> > volume?

> > 1. is it possible?

>

> Yes.

>

> > 2. whats the advantage?

>

> Not many that I know of.

>

> > 3. what is the disadvantage

>

> Pagefile latency, most of the documentation with regards to pagefile

> latency on servers that boot on SAN recommend that the pagefile be

> stored on a local disk to avoid problems. The system needs reliable

> access to the pagefile and having it on a local disk will ensure the

> fastest reliable access and the best possible performance for the server.

>

> Is/are your server(s) now booting from SAN? I take it that they are not

> but if they are contact your hardware vendor for further help and

> recommendations. If the servers are not booting from SAN then you

> should forget about placing the pagefile on SAN, it will only add

> significant complexities to your setup and will not provide any real

> benefits that I can think of. If your aim is to improve paging

> performance then you should place the pagefile on a fast separate

> dedicated physical hard disk on a dedicated controller.

>

> I should tell you that I have no hands on experience with booting from

> SAN technology, my answers here are from reading about the technology

> over the last few years. Booting from SAN is relatively new, changes

> and improvements are always being implemented, but as far as I know at

> the present time placing the pagefile on a SAN is usually not a

> recommended practice, others with hands on experience and with a broader

> knowledge of current developments with SAN and booting from SAN may

> offer different suggestions.

>

> John

>

[Guest John John]

Re: Pagefile on SAN

 

Moving the pagefile to the SAN is not the solution to your problem, it

will only cause complications and additional problems, the disk space

that you gain will be at best a short lived stop gap measure and the

server will (may) take a serious performance hit. I think that you

already know what needs to be done to alleviate the disk space problem.

If you have moved all that can be moved from the boot volume and if

you are still having disk space problems you have to bite the bullet and

do what needs to be done.

 

In the meantime, if you want to delay a bit longer, the easiest and

simplest thing to do would be to stick a disk controller card in the

server and attach a new drive to the card controller and move the

pagefile to the new drive. That would not cost too much and it can be

done with very little downtime, providing of course that the server has

a spare slot for the card and that you have a drive bay for the drive.

 

John

 

JamesRussel wrote:

> thank you very much John, this is a very good information. we had this in

> mind because the local drives are running out of disk space and it was just

> an idea what would happened if pagefile is on SAN, server is not booting from

> SAN.

>

> thanks,