Sorry I asked this question as an unregistered user and now can't mark it as answered. I am waiting to here back from the admins to see if they can attach my account to the question again.

To give some more insight this server will not be under huge load, its actually a source control backend. Buying a server and a DAS or a ISCSI SAN or something would have been over kill and the cost would have crushed the projects chances. I work for a SMB of about 100 people so our IT budget is tight especially right now.

@mrdenny

We did ask the questiong to the software vendor who recommened this configuration. We bought it then when we posed the quest I asked here they said to put log, databases, and tempdbs all on the raid 10 partition. I am not a big DB guy (really??) but this sounded fishy, as pretty much everyone knows not to mix your ldfs and mdfs on the same spindles.

@splattne - Thanks for the insight on tempdb's, this will come in handy for this and future SQL installs.

@SuperCoolMoss - I have talked to some people in my own IT firend network and they agree with you on this. OS, Pagefile and LDFs on RAID1 and tempdb and MDFs on RAID10

Thanks to everyone one else that commented.

From my reading these are the basic rules I think you should follow when delploying SQL when it comes to disks. In my opinion they should be followed in this order, let me know if you agree or disagree.

1. Use redundant disks (pretty obvious)
2. Use fast disks (SCSI/SAS, 15k is possible)
3. Seperate your ldf and mdf files on different spindles
4. Don't use RAID5 for ldfs or tempdbs (use RAID10 or RAID1)
5. Put your tempdb on your fastest spindles; if possible seperate tempdbs from ldf and mdf spindles.

Please feel free to share your modified version of this list.

Sorry I asked this question as an unregistered user and now can't mark it as answered. I am waiting to here back from the admins to see if they can attach my account to the question again.

To give some more insight this server will not be under huge load, its actually a source control backend. Buying a server and a DAS or a ISCSI SAN or something would have been over kill and the cost would have crushed the projects chances. I work for a SMB of about 100 people so our IT budget is tight especially right now.

@mrdenny

We did ask the questiong to the software vendor who recommened this configuration. We bought it then when we posed the quest I asked here they said to put log, databases, and tempdbs all on the raid 10 partition. I am not a big DB guy (really??) but this sounded fishy, as pretty much everyone knows not to mix your ldfs and mdfs on the same spindles.

@splattne - Thanks for the insight on tempdb's, this will come in handy for this and future SQL installs.

@SuperCoolMoss - I have talked to some people in my own IT firend network and they agree with you on this. OS, Pagefile and LDFs on RAID1 and tempdb and MDFs on RAID10

Thanks to everyone one else that commented.

From my reading these are the basic rules I think you should follow when delploying SQL when it comes to disks. In my opinion they should be followed in this order, let me know if you agree or disagree.

1. Use redundant disks (pretty obvious)
2. Use fast disks (SCSI/SAS, 15k if possible)
3. Seperate your ldf and mdf files on different spindles
4. Don't use RAID5 for ldfs or tempdbs (use RAID10 or RAID1)
5. Put your tempdb on your fastest spindles; if possible seperate tempdbs from ldf and mdf spindles.

Please feel free to share your modified version of this list.