On Mon, 2003-07-28 at 11:28, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Ron thank you for your comments, sorry of the slow response - i > actually replied to you on saturday but i think the list was having > trouble again?! > > Your questions are answered below... > > > On Fri, 2003-07-25 at 07:42, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > As mentioned previously I have a large text database with upwards > of > > > > > 40GB of data and 8 million tuples. > > > > > > The time has come to buy some real hardware for it. > > > > > > Having read around the subject online I see the general idea is to > > > get > > > as much memory and the fastest I/O possible. > > > > > > The buget for the server is approx 20K GBP / 30K US$ > > > > > > The data will be stored on an external raid, > > > SCSI based 2.5TB with IDE disks. Configured as 1 large volume, > RAID5. > > ( > > > We already have this hardware) > > > > There's a SCSI-IDE bridge somewhere in there? > > The raid hardware takes care of it, IDE disks slot into the backplane, > the RAID then SCSI attached to the server. > > If this hardware is percieved to be the bottleneck - and i think it > might be, then whats the best thing to replace it with? (a few > different specs/prices would be very helpful!) > > > 40GB of data, and 2.5TB disk space?? Even with RAID1+0, that's > > 1.25TB usable; 40GB (even after accounting for overhead and indexes) > > would get lost in 1250GB. Planning for growth, or also storing lots > > of non-DB related files (which is not a good idea)? > > Data is currently 40GB, maybe a bit more, it will increase steadily in > the future. There will be no non-database files on there. > > I am also planning to do a full text index on the data so that will > take up alot of room.
Besides, if you can get the disk space, take it! Will these be 250GB drives? What kind of DB backup scheme do you have planned? > > > Question 1 - whats the best raid configuration for this device? > > > > What's your read-to-write ratio? > > Faily small bulk INSERTS every 30 mins. > Continous querying within office hours. > > > Few complex multi-table queries, lots of simple queries, or > > a mixture? > > Mostley queries of the form 'ILIKE "%chicken%"' across >= 30GB of data. > This may change if full text indexing is sucessful but will still be > required for phrases 'ILIKE "%chicken and chips%" > > There will also be lots of smaller queries going on constantly, but > these are already quick enough on the old hardware. > > > > Onto the server, I have currently priced up the following: > > > Dell Poweredge 6650 > > > 16GB RAM > > > Quad intel hyperthreaded arch > > > PERC3Q controller > > > 36GB System HDD > > > approx 20K UKP > > > > Because of the limits of the x86 architecture, with 16GB RAM, I'd > > really think about a 64 bit system. Opteron, Alpha, Power5, > > Sparc64, etc. > > > > You can put 16GB RAM in x86 systems, but 64 bit systems use it > > more efficiently. > > I was under the impression that both the O/S and the application ( > postmaster) needed to be optimised to make best use of 64 bit arch. > Is this impression wrong? If not, is postgresql optimised for 64bit > arch? PG mostly uses the OS' cache, so if it's a 64 bit OS, and PG is compiled for the target, things will be fine. SuSE has an Opteron distro: http://www.suse.co.uk/uk/business/products/server/sles/index.html http://www.suse.co.uk/en/business/products/server/sles/misc/sles8_amd64.pdf > > > Question 2 - Comments and opinions on this as the postgresql server. > > > > > > Any comments on better alternatives or modification to this system > > > > would be very helpful! > > > > > > Question 3 - what would be the best way to distribute tables/swap/ > > > system disk space? > > > > 16GB swap would fit nicely on the system disk. Hope it's on a > > separate channel from the DB... > > Will put the swap on the local disk and the data on the external RAID - > different channels. > > > What OS are you using? > I will be using Red hat advanced server 2.1 - thats not set in stone > yet but RH is the distro that I am most familiar with. > > Thanks for you help so far! > > PS. Just in case theres an amazing system for 60K or less point it out > in case i can get more funding! -- +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: [EMAIL PROTECTED] | | Jefferson, LA USA | | | | "I'm not a vegetarian because I love animals, I'm a vegetarian | | because I hate vegetables!" | | unknown | +-----------------------------------------------------------------+ ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 7: don't forget to increase your free space map settings
