Top 10 SQL Server Performance Tuning Tips

I have always seperated logs, data & tempdb with a typical small server config being 3 sets of 2 x 300Gb disks as RAID1+0.
However I recently had the opportunity to perform some disk testing and just for the hell of it created one big logical disk from 6 x 300Gb RAID1+0 and put everything on this one disk.
A 150Gb OLTP database was restored and a number of tests were performed such as backups, restores, update stats, index rebuilds, DBCC, data inserts & deletes and a number of overnight reports, some of which are heavy users of tempdb.
I was quite suprised to find that everything ran significantly faster with everything all on the one big disk (eg: DBCC was over 30 mins quicker). The only exception being the reports which were heavy users of tempdb and these were just a few seconds slower than when using seperate disks.
I'm not in a position to simulate real user activity but from the above tests it looks like the benefit of having ALL the data spread over 6 disk spindles (rather than seperated and over just 2 spindles for each) cancels any negative effects of the data, logs & tempdb all being together.

Franklin, the link should be fixed soon. Thanks for pointing that out.

Great article! You covered some key areas that frequently get missed, any one of which could be "the problem". Also nice to see the Waits & Queues whitepaper reference at top... sometimes I think people overlook it because is says 2005 -- big mistake!

Great article, thanks for the insight

It is wonderful to know where you actually learn about those tips. I would like to see more references in the articles.

Take Care!