Thread: Technical recommendations
Hi all, I have received via the Advocacy questions about optimising a database server using PostgreSQL. The people asking the questions are planning to buy a new machine, solely dedicated to serving PostgreSQL. Being no specialist of optimisation, could someone help? They are interested in the 64-bit compatibility and are wondering which is better: a machine equiped with Opteron or AMD Athlon 64 3800? What other components should they bet strongly on: RAM, HD, network card? And please don't tell me "a lot of everything" ;-) Thanks --------------- Francois Home page: http://www.monpetitcoin.com/ "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." - George Orwell
Am Montag, 30. August 2004 11:35 schrieb Francois Suter: > What other components should they bet strongly on: RAM, HD, network > card? Get enough RAM to be able to cache the entire database (if the database is less than, say, 8 GB). Get a fast hard disk with a big bus. Other components generally aren't as important. Buy quality hardware. -- Peter Eisentraut http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/
Francois Suter wrote: > I have received via the Advocacy questions about optimising a database > server using PostgreSQL. The people asking the questions are planning to > buy a new machine, solely dedicated to serving PostgreSQL. Being no > specialist of optimisation, could someone help? > > They are interested in the 64-bit compatibility and are wondering which > is better: a machine equiped with Opteron or AMD Athlon 64 3800? For a server, ECC memory is mandatory. That narrows it down to Opteron or A64 FX 940 (which is the same thing as an Opteron 1XX). Getting non-ECC, non-registered memory (A64 3800) would mean (1) succeptible to crashing/data corruption from memory errors, (2) much lower max memory size, (3) lower performance when you fill up all memory banks. > What other components should they bet strongly on: RAM, HD, network card? High read activity -- a ton of RAM. High write activity -- a kickass SCSI RAID-0/1 config.
On Mon, 2004-08-30 at 05:48, William Yu wrote: > Francois Suter wrote: > > I have received via the Advocacy questions about optimising a database > > server using PostgreSQL. The people asking the questions are planning to > > buy a new machine, solely dedicated to serving PostgreSQL. Being no > > specialist of optimisation, could someone help? SNIP > > What other components should they bet strongly on: RAM, HD, network card? > > High read activity -- a ton of RAM. High write activity -- a kickass > SCSI RAID-0/1 config. Don't forget the battery backed cache on the controller...