Ideal hardware configuration for pgsql

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more
robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on
running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

Maybe a AMD Athlon 1.33GHZ would be better.. It's a very fast CPU and I
don't know if PostgreSQL runns faster on dual since I don't know if it
can handle the load balancing?
Well.. GIG of Ram is never bad... :)

SCSI Raid should secure your data also. You should use IBM HDs. They
never brake in a million years ;) Well and if.. You habe 5 years
garantie...

You're input is tremendously appreciated!

Don't know if sun machines help in your case since I don't know suns ;)
But I guess others could help you better if they knew some more details
about the use of the server.

greets

I would make sure that an intel box won't suit before looking at sun. Simply
for cost and if you're planning to run linux on it sun support will be shit
because they don't have skills in that area.
Databases thrive on more spindles, separate system spindles from the db
spindles and swap spindles, look at separating index tables from data tables
and the WAL.
Raid 3 or striping may be more suitable for the WAL (what happens if you
loose the WAL?) whereas raid 5 or a combination for 1/5 for data and
indexes. The chunk size on a raid set may also be worth pursuing as a means
of squeezing better performance from a dedicated db machine.

--
Ian Willis
Systems Administrator
Division of Entomology CSIRO
GPO Box 1700
Canberra ACT 2601
ph 02 6246 4391
fax 02 6246 4000

-----Original Message-----
From: Ryan Mahoney [mailto:ryan@paymentalliance.net]
Sent: Wednesday, 2 May 2001 8:35 AM
To: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: [GENERAL] Ideal hardware configuration for pgsql

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30% an
80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin Computing
800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

Before I order, I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions or
recommendations. I have been considering getting a Sun machine... but I
don't know if there is a benefit. Also, are there any special
considerations when running RAID and dual CPU?

You're input is tremendously appreciated!

-r

Ryan Mahoney
CTO, Payment Alliance, Inc.
ryan@paymentalliance.net
t. 718-721-0338
m. 718-490-5464
www.paymentalliance.net

At 7:28 +0200 5/2/2001, Christian Marschalek wrote:

Maybe a AMD Athlon 1.33GHZ would be better.. It's a very fast CPU and I
don't know if PostgreSQL runns faster on dual since I don't know if it
can handle the load balancing?
Well.. GIG of Ram is never bad... :)

I would think that dual CPU's would help immensely due to the
multiple postgres processes running simultaneously.
--
Cafard, mkb@ele.uri.edu
qu'est-ce que tu penses? AIM:pr0j2501
Matt Kane's Brain http://mkb.n3.net
===jive turkey http://jive-turkey.n3.net===

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC. What
do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run RH
7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

BTW, the input on hardware was very useful. I ordered a Dell today w/ gig
ram, dual 1ghz PIII and Raid 1 18gig scsi hard drives. I'm excited!

-r

At 06:52 PM 5/2/01 -0500, GH wrote:

We just bought a brand new Sun Netra X1. List pice from Sun was
$995.00. Yes under one grand. It is a 1U tall box. For once
Sun beats Intel prices. It comes with Solaris 8 preinstaled.
Basically just plug in and boot. We got a discount to $907.

We upgraded the RAM to 1GB (it uses PC133 RAM)
We also added a second drive and do a two way mirror.
I tested it by pulling the power cable from one drive
while Postgres was running. It worked, no crash.
The box is not super fast but usfull for many purposes.
My test database has 1M rows by 40 columns. With the
1GB RAM perforance is just "OK".

I used a dual Xeon box (2MB L2 cache, 1GB RAM, SCSI 160)
that was faster then the Sun Netera X1 but cost 6x more.

My Ideal box would have multiple CPUs, at least SCSI 160 drives
or better a hardware RAID box and 4GB RAM.

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30% an
80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin Computing
800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

gh

*snip*

GH <grasshacker@over-yonder.net> writes:

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30% an
80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin Computing
800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

Bah. Spare us the flamebait.

Some of us are running PG on RHL quite happily.

[FreeBSD is great too.]

-Doug
--
The rain man gave me two cures; he said jump right in,
The first was Texas medicine--the second was just railroad gin,
And like a fool I mixed them, and it strangled up my mind,
Now people just get uglier, and I got no sense of time... --Dylan

On Wed, 2 May 2001, GH wrote:

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30% an
80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin Computing
800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

You know - there's other Linux distributions than Red Hat - you don't
haveto use FreeBSD... may I cordially suggest SuSE - we use 7.0 and 7.1 on
all our servers, with no stabillity issues whatsoever.

--
Dominic J. Eidson
"Baruk Khazad! Khazad ai-menu!" - Gimli
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.the-infinite.org/ http://www.the-infinite.org/~dominic/

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30% an
80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin Computing
800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust... looking
into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat 7.1
on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

I think I have to agree on that one. Especially Linux's ext2 vs. BSD's
UFS. Of course, I assume you are asking for an optimal solution, not
just something that will work. Linux will work fine for most people.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian                        |  http://candle.pha.pa.us
  pgman@candle.pha.pa.us               |  (610) 853-3000
  +  If your life is a hard drive,     |  830 Blythe Avenue
  +  Christ can be your backup.        |  Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania 19026

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC. What
do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run RH
7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat. If you had ever seen the power and
beauty of FreeBSD, you would not continue using RedHat by choice.

You probably need to see it to believe it.
I encourage you to check it out sometime, but you should have no problem
at all running PostgreSQL on RedHat.

I'm out.

gh

While I certainly have to agree with all of the points regarding FreeBSD's
ease of use, and security I have one major critisism. Unfortunately there
aren't any great java ports for FreeBSD.

Linux also enjoys the attention of many bigger players such as IBM, Compaq.

Dave
----- Original Message -----
From: "GH" <grasshacker@over-yonder.net>
To: "Ryan Mahoney" <ryan@paymentalliance.net>
Cc: <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>
Sent: Wednesday, May 02, 2001 8:53 PM
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Ideal hardware configuration for pgsql

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC.

What

do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run

RH

7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat. If you had ever seen the power and
beauty of FreeBSD, you would not continue using RedHat by choice.

You probably need to see it to believe it.
I encourage you to check it out sometime, but you should have no problem
at all running PostgreSQL on RedHat.

I'm out.

gh

BTW, the input on hardware was very useful. I ordered a Dell today w/

gig

ram, dual 1ghz PIII and Raid 1 18gig scsi hard drives. I'm excited!

-r

At 06:52 PM 5/2/01 -0500, GH wrote:

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed

forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between

30% an

80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin

Computing

800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust...

looking

into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red

Hat 7.1

on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

gh

*snip*

You're input is tremendously appreciated!

-r

Ryan Mahoney
CTO, Payment Alliance, Inc.
ryan@paymentalliance.net
t. 718-721-0338
m. 718-490-5464
www.paymentalliance.net

---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
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I think that all this fat should be put on the fire.
A nice performance test on the same high end hardware would be good. Is
there a test suite that would suit?
Would anyone expect more than a 5% difference in performance between the
OS's even using the dreaded ext2 and not the reiserfs or SGI XFS. There
could there be wagers between the loudest in both camps? A 5% betting
premium could apply with all proceeds going to the postgresl development
team :)

My preference for using linux is that I like the licence and spirit of linux
more and assuming that the performance difference is negligable I'll stick
with it.
Similiarly many find that the BSD licence and associated community's
stricter development methodologies appeals more and they too will stick with
that whilst there is a negligable performance difference. But realistly
after using both I find that you can make one choke while the other sings if
you chose your test carefully enough and currently they get similiar
performance results on most general application tests.

--
Ian Willis

-----Original Message-----
From: GH [mailto:grasshacker@over-yonder.net]
Sent: Thursday, 3 May 2001 10:53 AM
To: Ryan Mahoney
Cc: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Ideal hardware configuration for pgsql

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC.

What

do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run RH
7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat. If you had ever seen the power and
beauty of FreeBSD, you would not continue using RedHat by choice.

You probably need to see it to believe it.
I encourage you to check it out sometime, but you should have no problem
at all running PostgreSQL on RedHat.

I'm out.

gh

BTW, the input on hardware was very useful. I ordered a Dell today w/ gig

ram, dual 1ghz PIII and Raid 1 18gig scsi hard drives. I'm excited!

-r

At 06:52 PM 5/2/01 -0500, GH wrote:

On Tue, May 01, 2001 at 11:35:13PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

Our db server running 7.1 got *torched* today, system ran between 30%

an

80% CPU all day! Right now the server is running on a Penguin

Computing

800mhz PIII w/ 128 ram and IDE hardware.

Tomorrow I'd like to place an order for something more robust...

looking

into dual PIII, gig of ram and SCSI Raid. Planning on running Red Hat

7.1

on this machine.

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

gh

*snip*

You're input is tremendously appreciated!

-r

Ryan Mahoney
CTO, Payment Alliance, Inc.
ryan@paymentalliance.net
t. 718-721-0338
m. 718-490-5464
www.paymentalliance.net

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TIP 6: Have you searched our list archives?

http://www.postgresql.org/search.mpl

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TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster

Unfortunately there aren't any great java ports for FreeBSD.

Check out the linux compatibility java support

linux-jdk13

I've found it to be about 95% as fast as something running
under native linux, but I get the perk of BSDs memory management and I
can typically run 1.4 times the apps/processes under BSD (linux dies).
With that, I gave up on the extra 5% speed and went for the higher
load and haven't looked back. -sc

Linux also enjoys the attention of many bigger players such as IBM, Compaq.

Let it... I'd rather have everyone focus on Linux so long as
the emmulation continues to be quick. If IBM tried to release stuff
for both Linux and BSD, it'd tack another week-month onto their
development time. Eventually they'll wisen up, but for now,
emmulation's paved my way to gold. -sc

However Linux works better on SMP.
As I know FreeBSD still used global kernel lock (as Linux 2.2) on SMP...

"Sean Chittenden" <sean-pgsql-general@chittenden.org> �������/�������� �
�������� ���������: news:20010502193726.N98891@rand.tgd.net...

--6iXXu7NwgEt9u5a7
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline

Unfortunately there aren't any great java ports for FreeBSD.

Check out the linux compatibility java support

linux-jdk13

I've found it to be about 95% as fast as something running
under native linux, but I get the perk of BSDs memory management and I
can typically run 1.4 times the apps/processes under BSD (linux dies).
With that, I gave up on the extra 5% speed and went for the higher
load and haven't looked back. -sc

Linux also enjoys the attention of many bigger players such as IBM,

Compaq.

Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> wrote:

Especially Linux's ext2 vs. BSD's UFS.

Hmm.. Could you elaborate on that?

Commonly perceived problems with ext2:
- Lack of journalling
This can be fixed by upgrading to ext3, or switching to ReiserFS,
XFS or JFS (ReiserFS works well in my experience, I've not tried
the others yet).
- Slowness in handling large directories.
ReiserFS was designed to handle this well.
- Lack of synchronous updates.
This is a misconception: simply use the "sync" mount option.

Ray
--
THEY planted The Lone Gunmen to MIND CONTROL the public into seeing TRUTH
SEEKERS as CONSPIRACY NUTS.

GH wrote:

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

At 06:52 PM 5/2/01 -0500, GH wrote:

I think that anyone whose opinion matters would recommend running
something *other* than RedHat. FreeBSD is an excellent operating system
and is well suited to a PostgreSQL environment.

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC. What
do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run RH
7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat. If you had ever seen the power and
beauty of FreeBSD, you would not continue using RedHat by choice.

<rant mode=perturbed acid=tartaric concentration=100>
I am offended highly by this arrogance. 'Anyone whose opinion matters'
indeed.

I have over a decade of experience with *nix, both SysV and BSD styles.
Both work. Both are stable. Both are fast. I have personal experience
with *nix, from an ancient VAX 11/750 running 4.2BSD to an AT&T
(Convergent) UnixPC (3B1) running SysVR2 to an AT&T 3B20 running Unix V7
to an Apollo DomainOS network running their SysVR3/4.3BSD hybrid to PC's
running Coherent to Linux 0.13 all the way up to Red Hat's 4.0-7.1.

Thomas Lockhart is one of the core group -- and he runs Linux.
Mandrake, at that. His opinion would matter.

This SysV vs BSD war is just ridiculous. I know -- Linux is the target
now, not SysV -- big whoopee. Same war -- different antagonists.

BOTH systems work -- both systems are (as of RH7.1) relatively secure
out of the box.

Have _you_ actually used Red Hat 7.1? I have actually _used_ FreeBSD --
and I prefer Red Hat by choice. And I prefer to have that choice
available.
</rant>

You probably need to see it to believe it.
I encourage you to check it out sometime, but you should have no problem
at all running PostgreSQL on RedHat.

As one who has run a mission-critical intranet on Red Hat Linux +
PostgreSQL since the days of PostgreSQL 6.1.1, I can heartily recommend
Red Hat, properly set up, to anyone.

I can just as easily recommend FreeBSD. It really doesn't matter --
both systems are free (in rms's sense of the word), both systems have
reasonable performance, both systems can be made reasonably secure.
FreeBSD can be made, through sysadmin neglect, as insecure as any Red
Hat release has ever been. And Red Hat can be made as secure as any
release of FreeBSD has ever been.

<plug mode=nohype>
Linux kernel 2.4 is a serious performance contender on UP and SMP
machines, BTW. :-)
</plug>
--
Lamar Owen
WGCR Internet Radio
1 Peter 4:11

GH <grasshacker@over-yonder.net> writes:

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC. What
do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to run RH
7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some compelling
FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat.

Hardly. Now, could you stop your uniformed flamebaiting please?
FreeBSD is nice in some respects (and not in others), but coming with
FUD like you are doesn't do anyone any good.

--
Trond Eivind Glomsr�d
Red Hat, Inc.

On Thursday 03 May 2001 11:58 am, Trond Eivind Glomsr�d wrote:

GH <grasshacker@over-yonder.net> writes:

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC.
What do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to
run RH 7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some
compelling FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat.

Hardly. Now, could you stop your uniformed flamebaiting please?
FreeBSD is nice in some respects (and not in others), but coming with
FUD like you are doesn't do anyone any good.

I hate to say it but saying that FreeBSD might be better than Red Hat is
hardly flamebait or FUD. And it doesn't necessarily seem uninformed to me
(why would he say it's more enjoyable if he wasn't informed - i.e. hadn't
experienced it?).

(disclaimer - I don't work for any OS company, and I don't use FreeBSD,
although I've thought about it.)

Michelle
--
------------
Michelle Murrain, Ph.D.
President
Norwottuck Technology Resources
mpm@norwottuck.com
http://www.norwottuck.com

Michelle Murrain <mpm@norwottuck.com> writes:

On Thursday 03 May 2001 11:58 am, Trond Eivind Glomsr�d wrote:

GH <grasshacker@over-yonder.net> writes:

On Wed, May 02, 2001 at 08:07:04PM +0100, some SMTP stream spewed forth:

I only have experience with Red Hat, Solaris 8 (intel), and LinuxPPC.
What do you see as the downside of running Red Hat? My intention is to
run RH 7.1, although I can surely be swayed if you can offer some
compelling FreeBSD benefits.

FreeBSD is out-of-the-box more secure, more stable, and generally more
enjoyable to work with than RedHat.

Hardly. Now, could you stop your uniformed flamebaiting please?
FreeBSD is nice in some respects (and not in others), but coming with
FUD like you are doesn't do anyone any good.

I hate to say it but saying that FreeBSD might be better than Red Hat is
hardly flamebait or FUD.

Those others, like "stable" and "secure". "Enjoyable" is obviously
subjective (FreeBSD isn't very enjoyable for me, who has used Linux
and Solaris extensively and much prefer SysV to BSD).
--
Trond Eivind Glomsr�d
Red Hat, Inc.