Re: Advice configuring ServeRAID 8k for performance - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Bruce Momjian
Subject Re: Advice configuring ServeRAID 8k for performance
Date
Msg-id 201008131817.o7DIH1b03550@momjian.us
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: Advice configuring ServeRAID 8k for performance  (Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>)
Responses Re: Advice configuring ServeRAID 8k for performance  (Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>)
List pgsql-performance
Greg Smith wrote:
> > 2) Should I configure the ext3 file system with noatime and/or
> > data=writeback or data=ordered?  My controller has a battery, the
> > logical drive has write cache enabled (write-back), and the physical
> > devices have write cache disabled (write-through).
>
> data=ordered is the ext3 default and usually a reasonable choice.  Using
> writeback instead can be dangerous, I wouldn't advise starting there.
> noatime is certainly a good thing, but the speedup is pretty minor if
> you have a battery-backed write cache.

We recomment 'data=writeback' for ext3 in our docs:

    http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/wal-intro.html

    Tip:  Because WAL restores database file contents after a crash,
    journaled file systems are not necessary for reliable storage of the
    data files or WAL files. In fact, journaling overhead can reduce
    performance, especially if journaling causes file system data  to be
    flushed to disk. Fortunately, data flushing during journaling can often
    be disabled with a file system mount option, e.g. data=writeback on a
    Linux ext3 file system. Journaled file systems do improve boot speed
    after a crash.

Should this be changed?

--
  Bruce Momjian  <bruce@momjian.us>        http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB                             http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

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