On Fri, 20 Aug 1999, Matthew Hixson wrote:
> I'm going to be working on a project soon that involves an SQL database. If
> I have my way it will be using PostgreSQL 6.5 on a dual PII-350 with 256 MB of
> RAM and two 18GB UW2 SCSI drives (Seagate Barracudas). However there is a
> possibility that it could be running on an NT server with even beefier hardware.
If you're planning on doing some heavy database processing and have the
funds, I'd suggest using smaller drives with a RAID controller. Large
drives such as the 18Gb store to much data per platter and as a result end
up a little IO bound when you're doing heavy processing.
I'd suggest using a *BSD, ie FreeBSD, as it's filsystem performance is
much better than something like ext2. As for the large table size, I ran a
postgres database with 15,000,000 tuples once. It was 6.3, and the vacuum
process was particularily nasty, but I don't think you will have any
problems with 6.5.
We're currently testing a system with about 1.2 million records with 6.5
and it outperforms SQL server 6 by quite a lot. It's running on a dual P3
with a 4 9.1 gig Cheetah array on a DPT controller running RAID0. I'm
pretty happy with it...
If you want to look at another aspect, even if Postgres didn't perform
quite as well as SQL server, consider about $1k for an NT server license
and $2k for a 10 client SQL server license.... put that moolah into
hardware and you're ahead again...
-Michael
