Author: way0utwest

I noticed a post recently from Bru Medishetty on Striped Backups. I commented, but thought I should explain a little more. There is a problem with striped backups in SQL Server.

They work great, they increase the speed at which you can perform a backup (possibly) and they can lower your backup window as well as reduce the load on your database server. Those are the good things.

The bad thing is they are too easy.

Yes, too easy. It sounds silly, but let me show you something. I can open Management Studio and pull up the backup dialog for one of my databases.

Now typically what I want to do is make a new backup. So I click the “Add” button in the lower right, get this dialog.

I type in my filename, and change the path if needed. I now click “OK” (it’s not grayed out when I enter a file) and I go back to the backup dialog. To make it easier to read, I’ve zoomed in at the bottom.

Or more specifically, let me scroll the box and let you see what’s there:

What I’ve actually got here is the last backup I did (a log backup file) listed along with the new one I entered. If I now click “OK” and perform the backup, what happens? Remember these file names weren’t visible from the main dialog without scrolling, and actually when I clicked “OK” from the file name, that line was actually highlighted.

What will happen is that half of my backup will get striped to 20090929.log and half will be striped to 20091216.bak. If I now want to restore the database on a new server, I need both those files.

Think it couldn’t happen? This is exactly when happened to me one time. I was in NY on business and got a call from a consulting client back in CO. They had done this, thinking they made a backup of the database, moved the file to the network and proceeded on with an upgrade. The upgrade crashed, and they couldn’t restore the .bak file. They called me and as I drove in a cab through Manhattan I had to give them the bad news that without the other file, they couldn’t restore the database. They never found that file and lost a few days worth of work.

They also abandoned SQL Server, moving to MySQL, which has simpler file based backups. They went out of business before long (it was a startup), though I don’t think that was related to MySQL.

I’ve seen new DBAs, developers, managers, any number of people have trouble here. The reason is that the GUI saves the last file you used in the dialog and presents it. Adding a new file, and seeing it highlighted, has confused many people into making a striped backup.

They’re just too easy.

I realized that I haven’t written enough recently on this blog myself, being occupied with other projects for work. Recently I noticed that a friend, Andy Leonard, had written a few posts on blogging and I wanted to point them out. First he had Blog (Durnit!) , which got some interesting responses. Andy’s from the South, hence the title. He then followed it up with Blog (Durnit!), Getting Started , and has some ideas on getting your blog going.

I tend to agree with his choices of WordPress, Blogger, and my.live.com at Live.com. I’ll also add in Typepad as well.  Any of these sites will give you a free blog. They’re growing with advertising and trying to get their names out there as the best software, so chances are you won’t have to do anything other than register.

However getting a blog started is even easier. Click your Start menu in windows and type “notepad”. That will bring up the text editor, which is a perfectly fine way to start blogging. Make some notes, write about your experience, and save the file with the date and time you finish it. No worries about privacy, about exposing yourself to criticism, it’s just a good way to see fi blogging makes sense for you.

Glenn Barry (blog, twitter) posted a note about MySpace using Fusion-IO PCi-E cards to replace hard drives in their systems. It’s an idea that’s been touted and I know there have been SQL people asking about it over the last year or so. There’s a nice case being made for their use in application servers, and MySpace has a white paper that’s worth reading as well on the Fusio-IO site.

However no one has really given us a good reference and more importantly, I was talking with some MVPs at the recent PASS Summit that have some heavily used systems. They are running thousands of transactions / sec and they said that they’d tested SSDs, but none of the manufacturers’ drives could stand up to their load. Within an hour or two they said they could burn out an SSD since the chips only allow so many writes and heat can be a factor.

So who’s correct? I don’t know. I think the workload matters quite a bit. I would like to think that these SSDs are perfect for quick tempdb work, but with all the constant write/read of tempdb, maybe that’s not the case. Maybe they’re better for indexes that are heavily read. I would love to test some for SSC, but I’m not sure if I could get them into our servers, or if I could publish if I had demo units.

I’ve been interested in testing one on my laptop even since hearing about Andy Warren’s experiences. My Toshiba Qosmio has 2 bays in it and I had some recent issues, which made me wish for a second drive in there, just in case. Then I saw Chad Miller recently post on Twitter that he’d ordered an SSD for his laptop. He got a RunCore 64GB drive from MyDigitalDiscount.

I have a 16GB SSD on my netbook, and it’s worked fine for me. However it’s hard to get an idea of any speed difference since the Atom processor is likely the bottleneck in performance on that machine. I might spent the $200 and get a drive for my laptop and see if it performs any different. One thing I need to do is get it upgraded to Win 7, benchmark it, and then consider getting an SSD in there with a second install of the OS. That would give me a spare bootable OS in case something happened to the SSD.

One thing I’ll also note is that when looking at prices at NewEgg I found there to be some substantial issues with Win 7 and some of these drives reporting in user reviews. Corsair, who I’ve often used for memory, has had a number of issues reported on their products. Not sure if these are older drives, old firmware, etc, but be sure you do some research before you buy one.

I’m not sure it’s true. I don’t think I have iPhone Stockholm Syndrome, as suggested by the article. It’s actually written about mobile operators, not end users, but it does raise some interesting points.

I’ve had a lot of people say that they won’t buy an iPhone because it’s a closed platform, and it locks you into Apple’s business model. They prefer Windows Mobile, Android, or Blackberry instead. I don’t get the last one because as handy as a Blackberry is, you’re locked into RIM and even need to purchase a license for their server to get the benefits (or subscribe to a telco version of the server).

I’ve said it before, that I think the iPhone is the best phone I’ve had. I had a Windows Mobile 5.x and a 6.0 phone, both of which I liked, but I had hardware issues. Actually I had a Dash that was too fragile for life on a ranch. After breaking 3 of them, I moved to a Sidekick. That worked, but it was an older, antiquated interface (I had a Sidekick 3) and didn’t serve my purposes that well for the modern techie.

Then I got a G1, the first Android phone on the market. I thought that was much better than Windows Mobile, and the phone itself was more durable. I liked the interface, and thought that the touch screen was very handy. Over time I found myself using the virtual keyboard instead of the physical one.

However then I got an iPhone. I had a chance to get one for free and jailbreak/unlock it, so I did and I loved it. The main thing that prompted me to move was that I had been reading on my iTouch and listening to music, both of which did not work well on my G1. For one thing I didn’t have an easy way to sync itunes and the G1, and there weren’t any bookstores with reading apps for the G1. I had hoped Barnes and Noble would build one, but as of the time I’m writing this, they still haven’t.

The iPhone, while the hardware and software is closed by Apple, still allow lots of apps to be distributed. I know the Google Voice thing got them upset, but I think that was more an ATT issue than an Apple one. Yes, with a more open OS it might not have been blocked, but the networks still might have prevented the packets from going to Google Voice.

Windows Mobile is controlled by Microsoft and while you can install apps on your phone, they don’t have a good storefront from which to get apps, nor is there support or backing. In fact, when I had a phone and had issues, the carriers refused to talk about problems there. Maybe things have changed there, but when working with T-Mobile, they were more than happy to help me get it working and even offer advice.

Android has lots of apps, but the lack of a mature store was something I noticed right away, especially away from the phone. I don’t want to do everything on the phone because it’s just hard. The iTunes/iPhone integration is smooth, I can buy from either interface and have things synced without my doing anything more than plugging in my phone.

Perhaps I have some Stockholm Syndrome, but from what I’ve seen so far, the iPhone is just a more mature platform right now. I don’t expect that to change in 2010, but I bet by 2011 that Android, and perhaps Windows Mobile will copy a lot of the iTunes features and we’ll be back to buying phones more on price because all the features will be available on all platforms.