Voice of the DBA

Author: way0utwest

  • Upgraded SSD

    I was going to call this an upgraded HDD, but that’s not right. Technically it’s a drive update, but really it’s an SSD upgrade.

    My new Portege Z30 came with a 128GB drive. I could have had Toshiba upgrade it, but it was more expensive than the deal I got before Christmas. Instead of Toshiba’s $400 for a 512GB upgrade, I paid $220 for a 512GB mSATA drive, and I also will have the 128GB one that came with the machine as a spare.

    I decided to upgrade the drives this weekend and was surprised how easy this actually was. I probably need to wipe the existing OS and reinstall a cleaner version of Win8.1, but for now I wanted to duplicate things.

    After powering on the machine and getting things setup (Which was easy, having my old settings of my Lenovo T430 pulled from OneDrive during setup), I needed to clone the drive. There are ways of doing this, but I settled on using the Macrium Reflect method from this MaxiumumPC article.

    I downloaded Macrium Reflect and installed it. It’s a simple GUI and connecting my new MSata drive in the external enclosure, I set things duplicating while I went off to watch my daughter’s volleyball tournament.

    The next day, I fell in love with YouTube and the community again. I found this teardown video that shows how easy it is to open up the Toshiba and get at the memory and drive. This is a slightly older model, and I didn’t need to the TORX screwdriver, but it was good to see someone show me without fumbling around or digging through poorly written documentation.

    This morning I started making coffee. I have a BUNN maker that brews a pot in about 5 minutes from start to finish, and it’s hot. I turned that on and then broke out a screwdriver. I didn’t take pictures, but it took me about the same amount of time as the coffeemaker to get done.

    I removed all the screws. I had one false start when the bottom didn’t lift up. I had missed two screws under the rear rubber feet, so I had to pry those off and remove the screws. I also needed a set of pliers to help turn one of the screws holding the drive in. This includes swapping the drives in my external case.

    I screwed things together and booted up the machine and it looked exactly like it had with the 500GB drive as it had with the 128GB one.

    Now to clean the OS and build things the way I want them.

  • Taking Care of Things Today

    I get the weekly SQLskills newsletter, which I always find interesting. There’s usually a video on a topic that teaches me something, and as an avid reader, I enjoy hearing about the books that Paul Randal has read. However the main part is called Paul’s Ponderings and often has some thoughts that really make me think.

    In one of the recent newsletters, Paul talked about carpe diem, seize the day, and how we shouldn’t let things slide to tomorrow if we can do them today. The examples relevant to DBAs are some maintenance or preparation items that can be tedious or onerous (Paul’s words), like practicing restores for DR, checking indexes, and tackling some documentation.

    Many of us procrastinate tasks at times. Some of us procrastinate constantly, and if we don’t have any impetus pushing us to complete an item, we may delay it indefinitely. I’ve certainly been guilty of that, but I also have learned that I need to tackle some of those tasks regularly. I certainly want to be sure that my instances are healthy, and for me that’s often meant the tedious tasks of checking backups, space, and indexes as well as practicing restores, even when things were running smoothly. These can be mind numbing tasks, especially when you have scripts that do much of the work, but they really do ensure things continue to run smoothly for long periods of time.

    There are plenty of methods for motivating yourself, but I’ve found that setting a few monthly reminders and bunching up smaller tasks allows me to get all the busy work over with at one time. Being a DBA requires some creativity and skills, but it can also require a nose to the grindstone on a regular basis, no matter how boring that may be.

    Steve Jones

     

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 2.2MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.

  • Technology Advances – mSATA external case

    I had an SSD die last year. It was one of my traveling SSDs, where I keep spare copies of my VMs and presentations. Fortunately I didn’t need the backup that trip, and when I got home, I switched out to the second drive and carried that along.

    I wasn’t planning on replacing the SSD too quickly, but when I saw a sale from Crucial over Christmas, I ordered a new mSATA drive. I hadn’t really paid attention to the format, thinking this would be similar to my other small SATA drives, but it wasn’t. It’s a card, as in a small SD card sized device.

    I can’t believe how small a 512GB drive has become.

    I also ordered an external case for is, a Sabrent one that was highly rated on Amazon. Here is the collection of the case and drive. For scale, my Bluetooth headset is in the picture.

    Photo Jan 09, 10 20 04 AM

    When I opened the case, it’s essentially a card that slides out. The mSATA card clips in there, much like a memory stick.

    Photo Jan 09, 10 20 20 AM

    Once I clipped it in, I slipped the insert back in the case and used two tiny screws (almost eyeglass size) to lock things together.

    Photo Jan 09, 10 21 02 AM

    The connection to a computer is with a USB3->SATA cable, the same format as my previous drives. That cable might be the bulkiest part of this ensemble as the drive could really be seen as 1/4 the size of my iPhone 6.

    My desktop recognized it right away and things look good. I didn’t do anything with that as I’m planning on sliding it into my new laptop and then using that 128GB drive as my backup on the road for talks and the main VM I need.

    I’m still considering grabbing a small PC like a Gigabyte BRIX as a spare device for me to present from. I’d love a tablet like the Surface Pro 3, but until I find an ultrabook or convertible with 16GB, I’m limited on choices.

  • Debugging SQL Server

    One of the tools that I found useful early in my development career was the debugger. Being able to track the values of variables, check the call stack, and pause execution of programs was handy. Early in my career, the tools were very rudimentary, but the latest debuggers in Visual Studio are quite advanced. I remember using a great debugger in Rapid/SQL years ago that helped me with some SQL Server 2000 code.

    There are debugging tools included with SQL Server, but the last time I used them, they seemed to be a bit flaky. However the need to follow your code slowly along it’s execution plan hasn’t changed. I’m curious this week, what many of you do inside of SQL Server to debug your code. I wanted to ask you this week:

    How do you debug your applications that work with SQL Server?

    These could be .NET applications that query the database. You could have ETL processes using SSIS or some other tool that you work on. Perhaps you have a system that runs entirely inside SQL Server and you need to untangle your T-SQL.

    Do you use Visual Studio tools? Have you configured the T-SQL debugger? Are you a PRINT statement or temp-table-for-results developer? Perhaps you have logging or some other mechanism that you use?

    Let us know this week what works well for you, and if you’ve found a particular technique to be handy in a situation, we’d love an article that might teach someone else how to debug their code.

    Steve Jones

     

    The Voice of the DBA Podcast

    Listen to the MP3 Audio ( 1.7MB) podcast or subscribe to the feed at iTunes and LibSyn.