I will be installing the a single-server SCCM 2012 R2 for a small environment.  I will use SQL 2012 or 2014 (not sure if upgrade from SQL 2012 to SQL 2014 is included in the SCCM package purchased) and everything will be on a single Server 2012 R2 with 2 SSD drives in RAID 1.  I plan to partition the C drive for Windows and then SQL and SCCM will all run on the D partition on the SSD.

The instructions I have found for installing System Center Configuration Manager 2012 R2 didn't go into much detail on setting up SQL other than configuring the maximum RAM setting.

Are there any recommended SQL configuration optimizations for a new SQL install that will be used only for Config Manager 2012 R2?

What about recommended scheduled maintenance and backup tasks?

• Edited by MyGposts 5 hours 47 minutes ago

Lot's of recommendations can be found on how to configure SQL for ConfigMgr, couple of links you should check out:

http://deploymentresearch.com/Research/Post/420/Sizing-your-ConfigMgr-2012-R2-Primary-Site-Server

http://blog.coretech.dk/kea/system-center-2012-configuration-manager-sql-recommendations/

http://blog.coretech.dk/kea/slides-and-links-from-my-site-review-session-nic-2015/ <-- precreate sql for configmgr

Also, if you want to use SQL2014 with R2 (you really should go straight for R2 SP1 instead), you have to use this hotfix to get the installer working with it https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3020755?wa=wsignin1.0

I downloaded the ISO from the Volume Licensing site earlier this year before R2 SP1 and it came bundled with SQL 2012.  I could go back and download the R2 SP1 version, but does that come bundled with SQL 2014, or would we have to pay for an SQL upgrade?

 will be on a single Server 2012 R2 with 2 SSD drives in RAID 1.  I plan to partition the C drive for Windows and then SQL and SCCM will all run on the D partition on the SSD.

Why creating 2 partitions at all then? You won't get any benefit and might run into free space issues sooner or later. How many clients should be managed? Just 2 disks might be not enough at all. 

To prevent the C drive from running out of space based on any future growth of the database. 

Having separate partitions will protect the free space on the C drive.

I double checked the drives and it will be 3 480GB drives, so it will need to be RAID 5 instead of RAID 1.

It will just be a few hundred clients.

• Edited by MyGposts 1 hour 51 minutes ago

That's what file growth limitations in SQL server are for. Creating partitions actually wastes space because let's say your database does grow and consumes all of the D volume but you still have 100GB free on the C volume doing absolutely nothing. You've just artificially caused yourself to run out of space when there actually was space available. Initially sizing your DB correctly and setting limits will prevent all of this.