What is the Microsoft SQLIO disk benchmark tool?

When you want to make sure your SQL Server database works optimally, you want to benchmark the different aspects that affect the overall performance. One of such aspects is the disk system, i.e. the raw disk performance for reads and writes and the performance of the disk system, such as the SAN network.

There are many tools and utilities for disk performance measurement, but one good tool for especially SQL Server related use is called SQLIO. This is a free tool from Microsoft, and can be downloaded from the Download Center.

This is a command-line utility, and there are even graphical shells written for this tool. In any case, the need for this tool is clear: it allows you to test disk performance, especially for typical SQL Server workloads.

For more details and examples, see this blog post on Technet.

Hope this helps!