Re: SCSI vs SATA - Mailing list pgsql-performance

From Jeff Frost
Subject Re: SCSI vs SATA
Date
Msg-id Pine.LNX.4.64.0704050819100.9190@discord.home.frostconsultingllc.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to Re: SCSI vs SATA  (Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com>)
Responses Re: SCSI vs SATA  ("jason@ohloh.net" <jason@ohloh.net>)
List pgsql-performance
On Thu, 5 Apr 2007, Scott Marlowe wrote:

>> I've read some recent contrary advice. Specifically advising the
>> sharing of all files (pg_xlogs, indices, etc..) on a huge raid array
>> and letting the drives load balance by brute force.
>
> The other, at first almost counter-intuitive result was that putting
> pg_xlog on a different partition on the same array (i.e. one big
> physical partition broken up into multiple logical ones) because the OS
> overhead of writing all the data to one file system caused performance
> issues.  Can't remember who reported the performance increase of the top
> of my head.

I noticed this behavior on the last Areca based 8 disk Raptor system I built.
Putting pg_xlog on a separate partition on the same logical volume was faster
than putting it on the large volume.  It was also faster to have 8xRAID10 for
OS+data+pg_xlog vs 6xRAID10 for data and 2xRAID1 for pg_xlog+OS.  Your
workload may vary, but it's definitely worth testing.  The system in question
had 1GB BBU.

--
Jeff Frost, Owner     <jeff@frostconsultingllc.com>
Frost Consulting, LLC     http://www.frostconsultingllc.com/
Phone: 650-780-7908    FAX: 650-649-1954

pgsql-performance by date:

Previous
From: Scott Marlowe
Date:
Subject: Re: SCSI vs SATA
Next
From: "Alex Deucher"
Date:
Subject: Re: postgres 7.4 vs 8.x redux: query plans