Folks, I have a few basic questions regarding the benefits of partitioning on the same drive. I've ready articles that say there is a benefit, and I've ready articles that say there isn't a benefit. Let's say I have a very large Drive E that I setup 4 filegroups on and spread 4 very large tables on each filegroup. I have another Drive F that I'll setup 4 filegroups on and spread the table indexes across each filegroup.
For data loading, or retrieval will I see a benefit vs putting all tables in one filegroup on Drive E, and all indexes in one filegroup on Drive F. I've read articles that said I'll see a benefit even if I spread the tables across filegroups on the same drive because SQL Server will detect the partitioning and spawn multiple threads.
Can someone describe their experiences with partitioning on the same drive, or even if you've used multiple drives? I know using a SAN would add another factor to this equation, but in this exercise assume Drives E, and F are very large physical drives.
So, I guess my questions is, will SQL Server perform data retrieval using parallelism (thus a benefit) if I'm hitting the same drive with multiple filegroups vs. the same drive with one filegroup.
Any pointers would be helpful.
Much thanks all,
Roz