Is the growth of a SqlServer database an intensive operation?

we have a Sql 2005 database and we have set the growth of the data开发者_JAVA技巧 file to autogrowth, 'By 1 MB'

We see that it does that approx every 10 minutes (its 9 GB now).

Is it as simple as: just put it to 10 or 100, or are there other things to consider, or can we just leave it at this because it's just an easy operation?

Yes, it can be. The speed of your disk subsystem is a factor, but 1MB is a little small. Perhaps 50 - 100MB would be better.

Pre-sizing your data and log files expected size under normal operating conditions is a common DBA task.

It IS expensive compared to other things. it is not so much 1mb every 10 minutes for 1mb.

That said, put the file up to a defined size and dont autogrow it - my advice.