> Stores are not large - 100 gig in total (raid array has 144 gig > available for stores). Disk layout is operating system raid 1, stores > raid 5 and logs single disk.
I would look at migrating the stores to RAID 10. RAID 5 isn't so great when there's a lot of writes going on and is better suited to things like file servers where it's mostly reads and you want more space/$. Use perfmon to look at how the read and write throughput you're getting. Compared to 3 spindle raid 5, even a 2 spindle mirror will likely be faster for writes. Defragging with something like Raxco PerfectDisk will also help some with your severe levels of fragmentation but won't be a panacea due to DB access being fairly random anyway. I would definitely NOT do the defragging while the server is online and serving users as defragging uses a lot of disk I/O. Schedule a maintenance window to get it done or do it off hours if you have that. ~JasonG -- ~ Ninja Email Security with Cloudmark Spam Engine Gets Image Spam ~ ~ http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Ninja ~
