While it's always possible to run into situations where the CPU in your database server is its bottleneck, it's downright likely that you'll run into a disk bottleneck—particularly if you only have a drive or two in the system. A few years ago, the basic two choices in hard drives were the inexpensive (also known as IDE) drives used in desktops, versus the more serious SCSI drives aimed at servers.
Both technologies have marched forward, and the current choice you're most likely to run into when configuring a database server is whether to use Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA) or Serial Attached SCSI (SAS). It's possible to find nearly identical drives available in both interfaces, and there are even drive controllers that ...
