SQL Server Health Check

Best Windows Power Plan for Optimizing SQL Server Performance

Updated
•
1 min read
Written by
Mark Varnas

CPU performance and Windows power plans

Usually, the balanced power plan is set by default, which is what Microsoft recommends for general use.

Great for saving the planet and being green, but it can be terrible for server performance.

The benefit of setting the server power management to high performance is for SQL Server to have consistent, predictable and high performance.

How to identify the issue?

On Windows Server 2008 and above, you can access the Power Options screen by typing powercfg.cpl in a Run prompt.

Figure 1 - Options of Windows power plans
Figure 1 – Options of Windows power plans

How do I fix it?

  1. Set Windows power plan to High performance.
  2. Validate BIOS power management is disabled or set to OS control.

More information

Speak with a SQL Expert

In just 30 minutes, we will show you how we can eliminate your SQL Server headaches and provide 
operational peace of mind

Schedule My Call Now ➜
Article by
Mark Varnas
Founder | CEO | SQL Veteran
Hey, I'm Mark, one of the guys behind Red9. I make a living performance tuning SQL Servers and making them more stable.

Leave a Comment

Discover More

SQL Server Health Check SQL Server Migrations & Upgrades SQL Server Performance Tuning SQL Server Security SQL Server Tips

Discover what clients are saying about Red9

Red9 has incredible expertise both in SQL migration and performance tuning.

The biggest benefit has been performance gains and tuning associated with migrating to AWS and a newer version of SQL Server with Always On clustering. Red9 was integral to this process. The deep knowledge of MSSQL and combined experience of Red9 have been a huge asset during a difficult migration. Red9 found inefficient indexes and performance bottlenecks that improved latency by over 400%.

Rich Staats 5 stars
Rich Staats
Cloud Engineer
MetalToad

Always willing to go an extra mile

Working with Red9 DBAs has been a pleasure. They are great team players and have an expert knowledge of SQL Server database administration. And are always willing to go the extra mile to get the project done.
5 stars
Evelyn A.
Sr. Database Administrator

Boosts server health and efficiency for enhanced customer satisfaction

Since adding Red9 to the reporting and DataWarehousing team, Red9 has done a good job coming up to speed on our environments and helping ensure we continue to meet our customer's needs. Red9 has taken ownership of our servers ensuring they remain healthy by monitoring and tuning inefficient queries.
5 stars
Andrew F.
Datawarehousing Manager
See more testimonials