Installing SQL Server on Windows 2012 bhyve guests

[Peter Grehan]

Hi Randy,

> I've followed the info provided here https://wiki.freebsd.org/bhyve/Windows
> to create a Windows Server 2012 image that I successfully installed on the
> bhyve hypervisor. After getting a working Win2012 image running, applying
> updates, etc. I attempted to install SQL Server 2014. In the late stages of
> that install, the process attempts to start the SQL server engine and fails.

  There have been some reports of this previously. What might be 
happening is that SQL Server has stricter requirements on the underlying 
block size than NTFS itself has.

  Since you are using a file-backed image, the reported block size from 
the emulated storage controller may be 8KB or even higher, depending on 
the underlying filesystem type.

  A suggestion is to force the block size to 4KB (has to be done during 
install as well), and if the problem persists, try 512 bytes. This is 
done by using the 'sectorsize=<bsz>' parameter to the disk configuration 
e.g.

  -s 4,ahci-hd,/path/to/disk.img,sectorsize=4096

later,

Peter.