In this blog, I would like to show you where to look to determine if your X3 database files are stored on one or more drives.   Why would this be important? The reason I bring this up is related to performance optimization.  Setting up your X3 database files across different physical drives helps optimize database performance. Having all your database files stored on the same drive is rarely optimal. Where can you check to see which drives your database files are stored for your X3 environment?  Let's take a look. 

You will need access to SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS) in order to do this. Login to SSMS and navigate to the server where your X3 database resides. When you have found your X3 database, right click on it and select Properties

Next go to the Select a page section and click on Files.  In the simplest of configurations, we are looking for the mdf and ldf files for the X3 database. The mdf file is the primary database file. This file is where the data resides.  The ldf file contains information related to changes that occurred in the primary file. It is a transaction log file. In our example we also have ndf files, which are secondary data files. These files are used to further spread the data to multiple physical drives. But for our example, let's just focus on the mdf and ldf files. 

You will notice the Path column for the mdf and ldf files.  The path indicates that the mdf and ldf files are both stored on the C drive.  It is considered best practice to store the mdf and ldf files on separate physical drives for performance optimization.  There are additional options that be used to further optimization as well, but we will leave that for another blog topic.

If you did want to change the path location of your X3 database, you will want to check Microsoft's documentation or help files for more detail specific to the SQL Server version being used.  You should also consult your Business Partner. Before doing anything, you should always confirm you have a current backup. Also, please review the X3 architecture guide specific to your X3 version, as it talks about considerations for database files. There are other recommendations highlighted in the X3 architecture guide as well.