Your
SharePoint configuration and SQL Server
The overall performance of your SharePoint farm is dependent on its configuration and settings, although since SQL server is
the underlying data engine upon which SharePoint is built, the faster the information
can be written, stored and accessed, the faster the performance of SharePoint.
The Disks and the NTFS Allocation size
In order to enhance the speed of SharePoint, especially when you have a traveling demo VM, you
need the required disk size, although if your laptop’s disk size is smaller than
the required specifications, it can still be modified to enhance SharePoint performance.
This can mostly be achieved by firstly formatting the disk and then changing
the NTFS allocation size on your drives. By default, your disk reads and writes
4K at a time, however, SQL reads and writes 64K, which is far greater. Changing the allocation size in NTFS on your drive alone will
boost your performance by up to 30%.
Modifying
the Model Database to increase SharePoint performance
The SQL utilizes the information in the model
Database for creating new databases. You would think that SharePoint would use the model database, but it actually does not. As a result, when a new content database is created, by default, the auto grow settings of the database is set to 1 MB at a time and as any SQL DBA worth his salt will tell you, a SQL grow operation is by far the most expensive operation in SQL. As a result, imagine your content database being full and someone uploading a 100 MB file. That will require the content database to grow 100 times. Not good for performance at all. So always go and check your grow settings after new content databases have been added.
Initial Size
When a new database is created, it is very
important to take into consideration its initial size and the purpose of its
creation. A larger amount of space should be allotted to a new database when
they are created, in order to prevent SQL from constantly asking for more
spaces to store data. This will certainly help the overall performance of
SharePoint i.e. avoid grow operations as explained in the previous section.
Auto Growth
In the long run, when the database is filled there
will be the need for it to grow, you can specifically allocate the size you
want it to grow into. Make sure to grow the size of your SharePoint databases
by chunks that make sense in your environment. Don't forget the TempDB. Remember, every write goes through the TempDB first before it goes to your DB!
Instant File
Initialization can help speed up SharePoint but be careful
Instant file initiation allows SharePoint
to skip certain long processes during the initiation of sizing and the auto growth
processes. Talking about increasing those SharePoint Database file sizes, how
does it actually do it? Well to make sure it can be written to as it creates or
grows the database, SQL will write zeroes to validate it can write to it and
then claim it. This can be a very long process depending on the required task
SharePoint asked of SQL Server. Performing the instant file initiation will
help in saving time and increase the speed of operation. This is especially true
for demo machines, but beware that the space must be available. You do NOT want to run out of space!
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