> > >On Tue, Aug 30, 2005 at 09:37:17 -0300,
> > > Alvaro Nunes Melo <al_nunes@atua.com.br> wrote:
> > >>The server is a Dual Xeon 3.0 with 2 GB RAM and two SCSI disks. Our main
> > >>doubt is what is the best configuration for the disks. We are thinking
> > >>about use them in a RAID-0 array. Is this the best option? What do you
> > >>suggest on partitioning? Separate partitions for the OS, data and pg_xlog?
> > >
> > Our main goal is performance speedup. Disk space might not be a problem.
> > I've read a lot here about movig pg_xlog to different partitions, and
> > we'll surely make tests to see what configuration might be better.
>
I've set up several servers with a config like this. Its not ideal,
but there's no reason you can't enjoy the benefits of a snappy
application.
The best results I've had involve dedicating one drive to OS, swap,
logs, tmp and everything and dedicate one drive to postgres. If you
use *nix you can mount the second drive as /var/lib/pgsql (or where
ever postgres lives on your server) with noatime as a mount option.
In retrospect, you might have saved the money on the second CPU and
gotten two more hard drives, but if you're running a dual task server
(i.e. LAMP) you may appreciate the second CPU.
The beauty of a server like this is that it puts more of the wizardry
of creating a fast application into the hands of the app developer,
which results in a better db schema, optimized queries and generally
*thinking* about the performance of the code. I personally feel that
to be a very rewarding aspect of my job. (As a hobby I program
microntrollers that run at 4MHz and have only 256 bytes of RAM, so
that could just be me.;-)
--
Matthew Nuzum
www.bearfruit.org
