Installation

This is something that I’ve been hoping would make an appearance in SQL Server at some point, and also why I included my last post about tempDB contention. It’s the ability to choose the number of tempDB files during install rather than having to add them yourself at a later date.

This is another bug-bear of mine… it’s something I believe should always be set at the time of creating a database and then periodically checked and altered where necessary... and this applies not only to the data file but to the log file as well.

Now this is a fun thing that I REALLY should have known, but have never really played with the therefore was mystified when it came up in conversation recently. I’ve asked a few other SQL guys and they were unaware of the true meaning of this setting either (which made me feel a little better). It’s not something I’ll be forgetting anytime soon though.

Here I will run through a basic installation of SQL Server 2008 R2. This does not include Analysis Services or Reporting Services as they are out of the scope of this article. This literally covers the basic install and key settings that need to be considered prior to running SQL Server for the first time.

Configuring your SQL Server correctly is one of the key tasks that must be completed in order to get the best performance out of your system.