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

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Win2K3 - Active-Active Configuration Doubts
    ... I have configured the SAN just as you have mentioned. ... A pagefile can only be set on "fixed" disks. ... So if you point a san disk directly on your server you can put a pagefile on ... I will create different resource groups and test it. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)
  • Re: Win2K3 - Active-Active Configuration Doubts
    ... So if you point a san disk directly on your server you can put a pagefile on it, but if you assign this disk as shared storage than the page file will not apply on this disk. ... I will create different resource groups and test it. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)
  • Re: Page datasets on SAN
    ... > Well, according to the EMC/IBM support matrix, booting AIX systems ... > against putting AIX paging space on SAN devices. ... > We're now booting our Sun systems off of internal disk, ...
    (AIX-L)
  • Re: Pagefile on SAN
    ... 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. ... 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. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.general)
  • Re: Booting from SAN or local?
    ... it's always better and easier to boot off local mirrored ... If you must boot from SAN, ... things might slow down for you if you've got swap space on a SAN disk. ... > My question to the group is: What is the preferred method of booting. ...
    (microsoft.public.windows.server.clustering)