File Size Best Pratice

Hi,
There may be a FAQ covering this. If so, please point that to me.
I have data about the size of 40GB to be loaded onto a RAID configuration
for SQL Server 2000 on Windows Server 2003. Should I use one database
file of the size 40GB, 10 database files (each about 4GB), or 20 database
files (each about 2GB)?
What is the best practice for this? What are the pros and cons?
Thanks,
Wenbin Zhang
There is no official best practice that I know of. But with a DB of only
40GB a single file should be fine. SQL Server 2000 can use multiple threads
to read the same file and the Raid will also split the data between multiple
physical drives as well. You can certainly add multiple files if you like
but the more you add the harder it gets to maintain them. And with a DB that
small you probably don't have much to gain by adding more files unless you
want to isolate tables or indexes onto separate filegroups.
Andrew J. Kelly SQL MVP
"Wenbin Zhang" <wzhang@.onesource.com> wrote in message
news:uHk3xKh3EHA.2156@.TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl...
> Hi,
> There may be a FAQ covering this. If so, please point that to me.
> I have data about the size of 40GB to be loaded onto a RAID configuration
> for SQL Server 2000 on Windows Server 2003. Should I use one database
> file of the size 40GB, 10 database files (each about 4GB), or 20 database
> files (each about 2GB)?
> What is the best practice for this? What are the pros and cons?
> Thanks,
> Wenbin Zhang
>