Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X - Mailing list pgsql-general
From | Jim Strickland |
---|---|
Subject | Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X |
Date | |
Msg-id | 418947C3.20409@americanroamer.com Whole thread Raw |
In response to | Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X (Jeff Bohmer <bohmer@visionlink.org>) |
Responses |
Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X
Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X |
List | pgsql-general |
Well, the whole reason I have asked this question is because my developer swears by OS X and PostgreSQL. However, I wanted opinions from other people who have possibly used a similar setup so I can make an informed decision. I will certainly keep your advice in mind. I guess the only reason I was asking about the version of OS X and the G5 processor, is because that is all my developer uses and he seems to think they make a great combination, but that seems to be at odds with your experience. Perhaps some others will weigh in with their experiences and I will be able to make a sound decision. Fortunately there is no great rush to decide. Thanks for your help. Jeff Bohmer wrote: >> I noticed you ran PostgreSQL on a G4. What version of OS X were you >> running? Is it possible the issues you were facing were fixed with >> the newer G5 processor? > > > We were using OS X 10.2 in production. We currently use 10.3 for our > development machines. > > I would be shocked if a processor could fix stability issues in an > operating system. As for performance, I cannot say how much better > PostgreSQL runs on a G5 as we don't have any G5s. In terms of > hardware specs, a G4/1.25Ghz should blow away a P3/800. But it didn't > for us, and I think that is because Linux/x86 is much more efficient > than OS X/ppc. I do not expect that to change with a newer ppc > processor. > > Since your your developers believe a dual G5 to be plenty, you will > probably get more than enough performance from an XServe G5 and any > comparable 2-way Intel or AMD x86 system. PostgreSQL should handily > outperform 4D. If those systems are in your price range, and > stability isn't a big concern, you should probably go with the OS you > are more familiar with. > > - Jeff > > >> Jeff Bohmer wrote: >> >>> >>> We use PostgreSQL 7.x on both OS X and Linux. We used to run OS X >>> in production, but due to numerous problems we switched to Linux. OS >>> X was not stable at all, especially under load. It was also a poor >>> performer under load or not. >>> >>> In my tests, a P3/800, 512MB RAM (100MHz bus) was consistently >>> faster at all queries than a G4/1.25GHz, 1.5GB RAM (266MHz bus) for >>> our application. Both machines had single IDE drives. >>> >>> Another thing to consider is that you can only get ATA drives with >>> Apple hardware. SCSI is not available from Apple, and SCSI devices >>> have very poor support under OS X. If a server with ATA drives goes >>> down at the wrong time, you can lose data. This happened to us with >>> our production OS X server last year. An extended power outage ran >>> out the UPS battery, the shutdown script did not stop the server in >>> time, and we had to restore from an earlier backup. For details on >>> why this can happen with ATA drives, see this thread: >>> >>> <http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2003-10/msg01343.php> >>> >>> Overall, PostgreSQL has been rock solid, very fast, and >>> headache-free on Linux. A complete change from OS X. Our main >>> production PostgreSQL server has been up for 234 days now. In that >>> period, the only downtime for PostgreSQL has been for planned upgrades. >>> >>> As a side note, we've also had major problems running multi-threaded >>> servers on OS X which run great (stable and much, much faster) on >>> Linux. >>> >>> - Jeff >>> >>> >>>> We currently are running a data intensive web service on a Mac >>>> using 4D. The developers of our site are looking at converting this >>>> web service to PostgreSQL. We will have a backup of our three >>>> production servers at our location. The developers are recommending >>>> that I purchase a 2GHz Dual Processor G5 with between 2GB and 4 GB >>>> RAM. They say that this configuration would be able to easily run a >>>> copy of all three production servers. My question is: has anybody >>>> had any experience comparing the performance of PostgreSQL on a G5 >>>> Mac versus a PC running Linux? Can anyone tell me if there are any >>>> benefits of running PostgreSQL on one platform over the other. >>>> Anything that can help me make the best decision would be appreciated. >>>> >>>> -- >>>> James Strickland - MCP >>>> IT Manager >>>> American Roamer >>>> 901-377-8585 >>>> http://www.americanroamer.com >>>> >>>> >>>> ---------------------------(end of >>>> broadcast)--------------------------- >>>> TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives? >>>> >>>> http://archives.postgresql.org >>> > -- James Strickland - MCP IT Manager American Roamer 901-377-8585 http://www.americanroamer.com
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