Hardware

On Tue, Feb 06, 2007 at 10:59:21AM -0500, Walter Vaughan wrote:

Is this still true in regards to Xeon's? I was looking at a server with
Quad Core Xeon 2 5335 @ 2.0GHz.

Multi-core Xeons are not as affected, and are somewhat different
"under the hood". So no, you're probably ok there.

Are RAID 1 or 1+0 or 0+1 equal in speed, performance, downtime in regards
to postgresql. Is it a coin toss?

Well, 1 isn't equivalent to 1+0 or 0+1 in terms of capacity, because
it's a straight mirror of two drives. I hate 0+1, because you lose
half the array in the event any disk in the side fails. So I always
use 1+0 if I can.

A

--
Andrew Sullivan | ajs@crankycanuck.ca
The plural of anecdote is not data.
--Roger Brinner

On 06.02.2007, at 08:59, Walter Vaughan wrote:

Is this still true in regards to Xeon's? I was looking at a server
with Quad Core Xeon 2 5335 @ 2.0GHz.

No, it's not true anymore. See

http://tweakers.net/reviews/657/1

for an interesting comparison.

cug

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On 6 Feb 2007, at 15:59, Walter Vaughan wrote:

I need to purchase a new server to put posgresql on that will be
acting as the DBMS server for Apache ofBiz soon. While googling
around for performance tweaks I saw this at http://revsys.com/
writings/postgresql-performance.html

<quote>
CPUs — The more CPUs the better, however if your database does not
use many complex functions your money is best spent on a better
disk subsystem. Also, avoid Intel Xeon processors with PostgreSQL
as there is a problem with the context switching in these
processors that gives sub-par performance. Opterons are generally
accepted as being a superior CPU for PostgreSQL databases.
</quote>

Is this still true in regards to Xeon's? I was looking at a server
with Quad Core Xeon 2 5335 @ 2.0GHz.

And at http://www.powerpostgresql.com/PerfList

It seems to be outdated. As far as I know it was supposed to warn for
the HyperThreading things.

- --

Viele Grüße,
Lars Heidieker

lars@heidieker.de
http://paradoxon.info

- ------------------------------------

Mystische Erklärungen.
Die mystischen Erklärungen gelten für tief;
die Wahrheit ist, dass sie noch nicht einmal oberflächlich sind.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche

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On Tue, 2007-02-06 at 10:33, Lars Heidieker wrote:

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On 6 Feb 2007, at 15:59, Walter Vaughan wrote:

I need to purchase a new server to put posgresql on that will be
acting as the DBMS server for Apache ofBiz soon. While googling
around for performance tweaks I saw this at http://revsys.com/
writings/postgresql-performance.html

<quote>
CPUs — The more CPUs the better, however if your database does not
use many complex functions your money is best spent on a better
disk subsystem. Also, avoid Intel Xeon processors with PostgreSQL
as there is a problem with the context switching in these
processors that gives sub-par performance. Opterons are generally
accepted as being a superior CPU for PostgreSQL databases.
</quote>

Is this still true in regards to Xeon's? I was looking at a server
with Quad Core Xeon 2 5335 @ 2.0GHz.

And at http://www.powerpostgresql.com/PerfList

It seems to be outdated. As far as I know it was supposed to warn for
the HyperThreading things.

It wasn't just hyperthreading. The older xeons tended to have more CPU
horsepower than cache bandwidth, and this resulted in them going into
swap storms whether hyperthreading was on or not. It was just easier to
trigger with hyperthreading.

On Tue, 6 Feb 2007, Walter Vaughan wrote:

<quote>
CPUs ? The more CPUs the better, however if your database does not use many
complex functions your money is best spent on a better disk subsystem. Also,
avoid Intel Xeon processors with PostgreSQL as there is a problem with the
context switching in these processors that gives sub-par performance.
Opterons are generally accepted as being a superior CPU for PostgreSQL
databases.
</quote>

Is this still true in regards to Xeon's? I was looking at a server with Quad
Core Xeon 2 5335 @ 2.0GHz.

My understanding is that this is no longer true with the newer xeons, but
then, I haven't tested them myself, so I can't say.