How do I find the data directory for a SQL Server instance?

Question

We have a few huge databases (20GB+) which mostly contain static lookup data. Because our application executes joins against tables in these databases, they have t

Answer 1

From the GUI: open your server properties, go to Database Settings, and see Database default locations.

Note that you can drop your database files wherever you like, though it seems cleaner to keep them in the default directory.