Azure IO performance sql server

Question

We are in the process of migrating our on-premises sql server to Azure and I am having trouble with the IO performance.

I have created a new D14 instance and attached 16 virtual disks at 100GB in size each. I have created a storage pool in Windows 2012 and subsequently created a volume. When I run crystal disk mark, I am seeing very slow speeds and low IOPS. What am I doing wrong? 28mb/s is not going to cut it for our SQL server.

How can I get those value up. Everything I read seems to tell me that this is possible, but I'm not sure what I am missing.

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I personally don't think it's fair to mark this question as a duplicate to older questions -- IO options and performance in cloud environments change quickly. Sharing current configuration and performance results and asking if there's a way to improve that specific configuration with the tools available now is a very fair thing to do and helpful to the community, in my opinion-- I think this is a great question. — Kendra Little, Dec 17 '14 at 22:17
Regarding cloud solutions - marking a question as a duplicate of something from a year ago isn't a particularly good idea. Things change frequently enough that asking a new question is likely to be more productive than opening a new question. — Jeremiah Peschka, Dec 17 '14 at 22:18
@JeremiahPeschka Thank you for this. I couldn't agree more. The existing question didn't really help me... — Chris Kooken, Dec 18 '14 at 15:06

score 3 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 15 '14 at 21:07

There is no clear cut answer to such question, however I will provide you with some links that should set you on the right path of optimizing the VM setup.

I would start by reading the official documentation from Microsoft regarding performance:

Performance Guidance for SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machines: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn248436.aspx
Performance Best Practices for SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machines: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/azure/dn133149.aspx

I would also read this article about the disk performance of the Azure VMs, you'll notice that you're disk performance is actually within acceptable range: http://blog.ittoby.com/2014/05/cloudy-io-performance-increasing-azure.html

Finally, I would read about the preview release of the "Premium Storage" feature, which will make the attached disks go up to 50,000 IOPS and run on SSDs: http://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/storage-premium-storage-preview-portal/

I wouldn't add 16/100 GB disk into a single Virtual Disk inside Windows and expect it to be fast, try to minimize the number of disks and increase their sizes, create different Virtual Disks for data and logs, and if you have the option to, use the Premium Storage feature.

Azure IO performance sql server

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