Specifications

A Principled Technologies test report 4
Hardware upgrades to improve database, SharePoint, Exchange, and
file server performance with the Intel processor-powered Dell
PowerEdge T630
Increasing memory
First, we upgraded the RAM in the Dell PowerEdge T630. This can benefit a
mixed workload environment by allowing a greater amount of data from each VM to
reside in memory cache, especially online transaction processing (OLTP) workloads. The
baseline configuration of the PowerEdge T630 we tested included 128 GB of RAM. As
Figure 3 shows, increasing this to 384 GB supported the workload of an additional 100
Exchange, SharePoint, and file server users and ran an additional heavy SQL database
workload while delivering the necessary performance. See Appendix D for detailed test
results and benchmark outputs.
Number of
Exchange users
Number of
SharePoint users
Number of
file server users
Number of
SQL Server VMs
Dell PowerEdge T630
(baseline)
200
200
200
1
Dell PowerEdge T630
with 384GB RAM
300
300
300
2
Figure 3: Performance results and increases when upgrading to 384GB RAM.
Upgrading HDDs to SSDs
The next upgrade replaced the SAS hard disk drives (HDDs) on our external
storage array to SSDs. This upgrade removed I/O performance bottlenecks, allowing the
Dell PowerEdge T630 to increase supported workloads and further unlock benefits from
having increased memory.
Upgrading to SSDs increased the number of supported Exchange, SharePoint,
and file server users by an additional 100 users, or 400 users total per application when
compared to the base configuration while maintaining performance. In addition, it
increased the number of supported SQL VMs from two to 12 while delivering the
required 14,000 OPM per VM minimum. Figure 4 shows the effect that upgrading these
components had on capacity and performance. See Appendix D for detailed test results
and benchmark outputs.
Number of
Exchange users
Number of
SharePoint users
Number of file
server users
Number of SQL
Server VMs
Dell PowerEdge T630
(baseline)
200
200
200
1
Dell PowerEdge T630
with SSDs
400
400
400
12
Figure 4: Performance results and increases when upgrading drives to SSDs.