

If you’re using multiple instances on the same server, you’ll want to use named instances for all of them. “Named instance” means you connect to server_name\ instance_name. On the next page, “Default instance” means you can connect to the server by just using the server name.Also, note the installation path, which by default is on the system drive.Note that the management tools are installed separately and not as a part of the SQL Server distribution.Here, we get to choose the features to install.The first few steps are pretty much self-explanatory.With the prerequisites out of the way, here we go: Even more reading on setting up Azure VM storage.More on SQL Server performance on Azure VMs.Microsoft recommends enabling TRIM for unmanaged standard disks.Disable caching on transaction log drives.If you’re using SSD drives, the data drives should have read caching.If you still want an antivirus software, make sure that it excludes: I don’t like anti-virus software, and if it doesn’t crash things, chances are that it’ll come with a measurable performance impact. Name your drives in a sensible manner, like DATA1, DATA2, DATA3, … LOG1, LOG2, … TEMPDB1, TEMPDB2, …, BACKUP, etc.Format all data/log drives using 64 KB block sizes, as this aligns with the I/O operations of SQL Server.Partition your volumes with GPT rather than MBR if you can.Possibly a separate volume for the SQL Server program files.Ideally, place the following on one or multiple volumes each: How many drives you use will depend on how deep pockets you have. Use separate disks for database files, transaction log files, backups and tempdb.NET Framework, but you may have to install it on older Windows Server versions. Windows Server 2016 and newer comes pre-installed with this version of the.

I’m using Windows Server 2016 for the examples and screenshots, but I think most of this will work on Windows Server 2012/2012R2 or 2019 as well.

Glenn Berry goes through some recommended CPUs for SQL Server on.To keep this checklist accurate, I’m going to stay firmly in my comfort zone and leave SAN performance, RAID configuration, NIC teaming and load testing to other professionals. As a consultant, I’m typically provided with a fresh server (VM or physical) with a clean install of Windows Server and the basic networking, domain, storage, etc installed and nothing more. This checklist assumes that all your hardware is in place and tested. Starting with 2017, SQL Server can also be set up in Linux containers. I would love to hear about your recommendations and best practices in the comments! This list also exists for SQL Server 2014 and SQL Server 2016, SQL Server 2019 and SQL Server 2022. This is a checklist I’ve worked out for installing SQL Server 2017 on Windows.
