From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 3 15:03:43 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 71B8F16A4CE for ; Thu, 3 Jun 2004 15:03:43 -0700 (PDT) Received: from internet.potentialtech.com (h-66-167-251-6.phlapafg.covad.net [66.167.251.6]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0FC1643D1F for ; Thu, 3 Jun 2004 15:03:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from wmoran@potentialtech.com) Received: from working.potentialtech.com (pa-plum1c-102.pit.adelphia.net [24.53.179.102]) by internet.potentialtech.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 2A0B069A71; Thu, 3 Jun 2004 18:03:42 -0400 (EDT) Date: Thu, 3 Jun 2004 18:03:41 -0400 From: Bill Moran To: Kenji M Message-Id: <20040603180341.1bc147ac.wmoran@potentialtech.com> In-Reply-To: <20040603214253.GA93387@kenjim.com> References: <20040603214253.GA93387@kenjim.com> Organization: Potential Technologies X-Mailer: Sylpheed version 0.9.10 (GTK+ 1.2.10; i386-portbld-freebsd4.9) Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit cc: kenji@kenjim.com cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Running FreeBSD/PostgreSQL on high-end dual Xeon box X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2004 22:03:43 -0000 Kenji M wrote: > Hello everyone, first time list leech. > > I am in the process of speccing out a high end PC to be used > as a database server for PostgreSQL. We are currently running > MySQL on Linux, but want to migrate our code to PostgreSQL and > we are primarily a FreeBSD shop. > > I am currently specing a 2U dual Xeon server and hope to use > RAID 0+1 capability. The question is for PostgreSQL admins... > > 1) Which RAID controller should we use? Depends on your need. If you don't have outrageous requirements, vinum would work fine as software raid. If you have very high performance requirements, the general consensus on the Postgres lists is that a SCSI raid controller with a large battery-backed cache produces the best performing, most reliable systems. I don't have any specific model numbers, though. > 2) Considering Q1, does it not even make sense to use FreeBSD+PostgreSQL > and bite the bullet and go with Linux (assuming it has better hw RAID > support) and run PostgreSQL on that using a fancier journaling filesystem. I doubt it. If you use battery-backed cache, you have no need of journalling. Even still, you get comparible performance with ufs+softupdates (although it's just a _little_ slower). Now, I've never done "plug tests" on UFS, but I haven't heard of any UFS filesystems getting beyond the point that PostgreSQL couldn't recover the database. -- Bill Moran Potential Technologies http://www.potentialtech.com