Do you think about something when you create a new database? I guess that most of us would say no, since we all use default parameters, though they are far from being optimal. However, there is a bunch of disc settings which can really help to increase the system reliability and performance.
We won’t speak of the importance of the NTFS file system for data reliability, though this file system allows MS SQL Server to use the disk in the most effective way.
If you are short of resources and something starts working slow, the first thing that comes to mind is upgrading. But upgrading is not required in every case. You can get away with tuning, though it should be done not when the server starts running slow, but at the stage of design and installation.
Optimization is a complex process and is often related not only to a certain program (in our case, to a certain database) but also to OS and hardware. Though we will mostly speak about databases, we cannot ignore the outward things.