Reference Configuration

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Fast Track Reference Configurations using PowerEdge R720 and PowerVault MD3620i

PowerVault MD3620i iSCSI storage arrays

PowerVault MD3620i storage arrays support 2.5 inch 6Gbps SAS disks, which enable better backend

performance. MD3620i supports up to two controllers. Each controller has two 10GbE host side ports

and one SAS out port, which is used to connect to any additional expansion enclosures. Each RAID

controller module contains 2GB of cache that is mirrored with the other controller's cache for high

availability and protected by a battery-powered cache offload mechanism.

Dell PowerVault MD3620i storage comes with its own Device Specific Module (DSM) software, included

in the MD3620i’s Resource DVD, which is fully integrated with Microsoft MPIO and helps you configure

multipath solutions.

Figure 3 depicts how the cables are connected in the configuration.

Cabling diagram for single server configuration Figure 3.

Visit dell.com/us/enterprise/p/powervault-iscsi-arrays

for more information on PowerVault MD3620i

storage arrays.

Reference architecture configuration tuning details

This section explains best practices and tuning guidelines to achieve the best performance using the

discussed reference architectures.

PowerVault MD3620i storage tuning

The following modifications are needed to optimize the storage for maximum sequential throughput:

• Enable Jumbo Frames on all storage iSCSI host ports

• Enable High Performance Tier feature on MD3620i

• Set the Storage Cache Block Size to 32KB

• Set the virtual disk segment size to 256KB