SQL Server – Disk Separation for DB Installation and Data Files

Seeing that the recovery model is set to simple and msdn states that the simple recovery model does not support point-in-time recovery - Does this mean that I won't be able to use my transaction log backups to restore the database in a disaster to an hour before it happened?

Even taking a transaction log backup is not supported for databases using the SIMPLE recovery model. This is a restriction of the database engine based on how this recovery model works, and the recovery features it doesn't support, as you mentioned.

A transaction log backup maintenance plan task automatically skips databases in SIMPLE recovery to avoid causing errors.

Which backup should be done first, the database backup or the transaction log backups? Articles that I'm busy reading say I should do the database backup first and then the transaction log backup else I will get maintenance plan errors, but I'm currently first backing up my transaction logs and then data databases and I'm not getting any errors.

For the reasons I mentioned above, it won't matter for databases using SIMPLE recovery, as they will be skipped by the transaction log backup task.

For databases in the other two recovery models, a full backup must exist before you start taking transaction log backups (just the first time), or you will get an error -- this is probably what the articles refer to.

Point-in-time recovery ability is normally driven by business need -- in other words, you determine how critical the data is and how much you can afford to lose, then set the appropriate recovery model to meet those needs, and finally create a backup solution.

Even though SIMPLE recovery does not support point-in-time recovery, if an hour of data loss is okay, perhaps a differential backup solution could work for you. (There are far too many variables that go into developing this kind of solution to give you a complete picture with what was provided in the question.)

1. I would only use RAID 0 for the logs if you're okay with having reduced disaster recovery capability. You won't be able to make log tail backups in the event of a disk failure, and will only be able to restore to your most recent backup. However, this may be less of an issue if you're running Availability Groups, particularly with synchronous mirroring. You generally won't have any performance overhead for RAID 1 vs. a single non-RAID disk, but you will have better I/O performance with RAID 0 instead of RAID 1 for an equal number of disks.

2. Be aware that tempdb also has both data files and log files, and those could end up interfering with each other (performance wise) if placed on the same volume. You may want to consider foregoing the spare disk and using it for tempdb logs instead if performance still isn't acceptable. If your C: array is large enough, you might be able to get away with using it for on-disk backups, though you should probably partition it to prevent runaway backups from filling your OS disk.