SQL Server question

[benplace]

I wasn't sure where to post this but I have a question for all you DB administrators out there.

 

I have an old Microsoft SQL server that, for financial reasons, I cannot replace until later in the year. The OS, DB and temp files are on one 10k RAID 5 array (I didn't design it) The server is getting a disk bottleneck currently. Disk active time pegging out at 100% and slow performance.
It has two x8 PCI express slots on it and I am thinking of putting two x8 ssd cards in and moving my database to that.

My question is this, would performance be better if I made the two drives stand alone, with the DB on one and the temp on the other and then replicated data in real time to another on site server for redundancy or if I just made them one mirrored array (RAID 1) using windows for redundancy with both the DB and tempdb on it?

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

can you post the specs for the system?

 

my 1st inclination would be to create a RAID 1 array for those 2 cards, but im not so sure yet.

[benplace]

It is an HP Proliant  DL380 G5 http://h18000.www1.hp.com/products/quickspecs/archives_North_America/12477_na_v2/12477_na.HTML

The current drives are 10k (6 in a raid 5 array), I would prefer not to reload the OS as I am looking for a temp fix until I can replace this server in the fall.

I was going to use the PCI express slots 4 and 5 because they support x8

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

is this like a production database, or mission critical? if so, i'd do an active/passive type thing for those 2 cards for failover redundancy. i'd also be backing up that data regularly to another medium and/or server.

[benplace]

Production mission critical and backed up nightly.

[benplace]

Performance wise what is the best course of action for doing an active/passive setup?