How manage drive letter limitation for windows server 2012 R2

Question

Dear All

I would like your support, in my environment have windows server 2012 R2 run for SQL Server 2016, our DBA is require many disk and drive on these server to separate between database file and Log file, from now it have 10 Drive letter ( C,D,E,F,G,H,I,J,M,N ), and they require more 8 Drive letter, I am not sure it have some limitation on windows server or SQL or not? and it have effect to SQL performance or not ?,

if you have some idea or reference, please share to me

Answer 1

Different drive letters will work without performance concerns. An alternative (only necessary once you exhaust drive letters) are mount points. To create a mount point, create an empty folder on any existing NTFS volume and then use the Disk Management mmc to mount the disk volume in that empty folder instead of assigning a drive letter. Repeat for each drive. See mount a drive in a folder for detailed instructions.

Below is an example of what the directory structure might look with all mount points on drive M: folders.

M:\MountPoint_Disk1
M:\MountPoint_Disk2
M:\MountPoint_Disk3
M:\MountPoint_Disk4
...

Answer 2

The limitation is on Windows Server side, you can have drive letters from A till Z, so 26.

The requirements by your DBA is a bit strange for me, I never saw a SQL Server installation with more the lets say 9 disks.

Answer 3

Hi 71957367,

Agree with others.
In addition, you can use Performance Monitor to check if there are any disk I/O performance issues. Please refer to Slow I/O - SQL Server and disk I/O performance and SQL Server monitoring tools for disk I/O performance which might be helpful.

Best Regards,
Amelia

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Answer 4

For management of multiple drive letters consider using these third party software:

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/drive_letter_view.html

https://www.nirsoft.net/utils/usb_devices_view.html

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Answer 5

Just to add.

On modern SAN technology, having multiple separate drive letters for data files is not really needed. Before doing any partitioning or mapping of drives, you should consult your SAN provider for instructions for best using SQL Server on their solution.