Why Selects That Cause Writes Can Mean Performance Trouble In SQL Server

Answer Time

While answering a question on dba.se, I got to thinking about if there would be a good way to detect SELECT queries that cause writes.

In newer versions of SQL Server, sys.dm_exec_query_stats has columns that show you spills.

That’s a pretty good start, but what about other kinds of writes, like the ones outlined in the Q&A I linked to?

So uh, I wrote this script to find them.

Downsides

The downsides here are that it’s looking at the plan cache, so I can’t show you which operator is spilling. You’ll have to figure that out on your own.

The source of the writes may be something else, too. It could be a spool, or a stats update, etc. That’s why I tried to set the spill size (1024.) kind of high, to not detect trivial writes.

You may be able to loosely correlate spills to IO_COMPLETION or SLEEP_TASK waits.

Thanks for reading!

WITH 
XMLNAMESPACES 
    ('http://schemas.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2004/07/showplan' AS x),
writes AS
(
    SELECT TOP (100)
        deqs.statement_start_offset,
        deqs.statement_end_offset,
        deqs.plan_handle,
        deqs.creation_time,
        deqs.last_execution_time,
        deqs.total_logical_writes,
        deqs.last_logical_writes,
        deqs.min_logical_writes,
        deqs.max_logical_writes,
        deqs.query_hash,
        deqs.query_plan_hash
    FROM sys.dm_exec_query_stats AS deqs
    WHERE deqs.min_logical_writes > 1024.
    ORDER BY deqs.min_logical_writes DESC
),
plans AS
(
    SELECT DISTINCT
        w.plan_handle,
        w.statement_start_offset,
        w.statement_end_offset,
        w.creation_time,
        w.last_execution_time,
        w.total_logical_writes,
        w.last_logical_writes,
        w.min_logical_writes,
        w.max_logical_writes
    FROM writes AS w
    CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(w.plan_handle) AS deqp
    CROSS APPLY deqp.query_plan.nodes('//x:StmtSimple') AS s(c)
    WHERE deqp.dbid > 4
    AND   s.c.value('@StatementType', 'VARCHAR(100)') = 'SELECT'
    AND   NOT EXISTS 
          (   
              SELECT      
                  1/0 --If nothing comes up, quote out the NOT EXISTS. 
              FROM writes AS w2
              CROSS APPLY deqp.query_plan.nodes('//x:StmtSimple') AS s2(c)
              WHERE w2.query_hash = w.query_hash
              AND   w2.query_plan_hash = w.query_plan_hash
              AND   s2.c.value('@StatementType', 'VARCHAR(100)') <> 'SELECT' 
          )
)
SELECT      
    p.creation_time,
    p.last_execution_time,
    p.total_logical_writes,
    p.last_logical_writes,
    p.min_logical_writes,
    p.max_logical_writes,
    text = 
        SUBSTRING
        (
            dest.text, 
        	( p.statement_start_offset / 2 ) + 1,
            (( 
        	    CASE p.statement_end_offset 
        		     WHEN -1 
        			 THEN DATALENGTH(dest.text) 
        	         ELSE p.statement_end_offset 
                END - p.statement_start_offset 
        	  ) / 2 ) + 1
        ),
    deqp.query_plan
FROM plans AS p
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_sql_text(p.plan_handle) AS dest
CROSS APPLY sys.dm_exec_query_plan(p.plan_handle) AS deqp
ORDER BY p.min_logical_writes DESC
OPTION ( RECOMPILE );

Going Further

If this is the kind of SQL Server stuff you love learning about, you’ll love my training. I’m offering a 75% discount to my blog readers if you click from here. I’m also available for consulting if you just don’t have time for that and need to solve performance problems quickly.