To ensure your database stays healthy and available

• Remove excessive transaction log file fragmentation.
• Set auto-growth correctly.
• Turn off any scheduled shrink operations.
• Turn on instant file initialization.
• Put a regular process in place to detect and remove index fragmentation.
• Turn on AUTO_CREATE_STATISTICS and AUTO_UPDATE_STATISTICS, plus have a regular process in place to update statistics.
• Turn on page checksums- SQL Server 2005 onwards (or least torn-page detection on SQL Server 2000).
• Have a regular process to run DBCC CHECKDB.
• Have a regular process in place to take full database backups, plus differential and log backups for point-in-time recovery.