Looking at any modern Linux FS, your file size limits are not hindered by 32-bit anything or even
the FS itself. On kernel 2.4, internal kernel structures limit the maximum size of block devices to around 1 TB.
As a result, you can "only" have files of about that size (even though ReiserFS and XFS support hideously
bigger files). As far as I know, almost every OS aimed at doing anything non-trivial (so everything other than DOS 2.11),
has no problem with files of any size up to some rather massive limit like the one above.
Additionally, you could just point InnoDB at a raw partition sitting on an LVM set on top of a RAID and
be happy. Or you could do what my friend tried once, and see if you can hot-swap a bog-standard IDE drive....
Regarding SQLBase, it is indeed a joke. The latest version "includes sorting methods that are up to 250% faster!"
If that's the case, which idiot coded the first set? Almost every other DB vendor has figured out how to sort quite
well for ages now...
David Griffiths wrote:
onHigh-end database systems perfer more files, as they can be spread across
multiple (usually fast SCSI) disks. Most databases recommend logs be kept
theseperate disks than database files.
Changes in the number of files can resolve problems if the problems are
result of low disk IO and you have money to throw at the problem.True, but this isn't always the case.
David
Let's look at the almighty InnoDB for instance. It happily uses multiple
files for the data dictionary (ibdata*) if
you tell it but, as far as I know, treats them like one big space, not
doing striping or anything fancy.
It fills up the data-files sequentially (not writing a bit here, a bit there), but that could change.
Of course, if you have all the data files spread across 5 disks, and you needed 10 non-sequential blocks (that aren't in memory), you will probably utilize more than one disk, which is a good thing.
There is also a size issue. Each of our databases is about 25 gig of data. I don't want to cram that into one file. Some of our tables are in the 4-6 gig range. I don't want to be bumping up against 32-bit file-size limits.
On Oracle, we have 9 tablespaces just for data (and each tablespace is 3 datafiles). Indexes have their own tablespaces. We have three mirrored disks, so each datafile goes on one mirrored-set.
Our new server will be hot-swappable a RAID SCSI setup. The more drives you can get working at one time, the faster your database server will be (if you end up going to disk a fair bit).
Backups in Oracle are not done by saving the datafiles. And if you use the InnoDB hot-backup tool (which we will have to), the same will apply to MySQL/InnoDB. So the # of files is not a hinderance to backups in that case.
Finally, you can cram all your data into one InnoDB datafile if you so desire. It's one extra file to backup.
In fact, with Oracle, you can just have one big data file. No FRM files or anything.
Regarding logs being kept seperately, you will get no argument from me!
In fact, if you can keep your logs on a
HA cluster of NAS boxes, in a safe, covered in concrete, connected by
multiply-redundant fibre-channel links,
guarded by half the population of Wagga Wagga and plastered with images
from random links from the awful,
awful bowels of the internet I still reckon that you'd probably be able
to find a way to go one better with
log protection.
Time to cut back on the coffee, my friend :)
Seriously, log files are kept on different disks not for security, but for performance.Writing a 20-meg file to disk is a big performance hit; if you are trying to read and write database data from that disk at the same time, you'll notice it.
Look at SQLBase - "Zero Administration" they reckon. Log files do not
exist seperately, they exist inside the
same file that holds everything else! Not good! You need to do a
"reorganise" every few weeks or things start
to...well..err...suck! Give me MySQL any day!
That's brain-dead.
The best database allows dba's and users to be as flexible as they want/need to be.
David
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