-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Mark Kirkwood wrote: > Scott Carey wrote: >> >> A little extra info here >> md, LVM, and some other tools do not >> allow the file system to use write barriers properly.... So >> those are on the bad list for data integrity with SAS or SATA >> write caches without battery back-up. However, this is NOT an >> issue on the postgres data partition. Data fsync still works >> fine, its the file system journal that might have out-of-order >> writes. For xlogs, write barriers are not important, only >> fsync() not lying. >> >> As an additional note, ext4 uses checksums per block in the >> journal, so it is resistant to out of order writes causing >> trouble. The test compared to here was on ext4, and most likely >> the speed increase is partly due to that. >> >> > > [Looks at Stef's config - 2x 7200 rpm SATA RAID 0] I'm still > highly suspicious of such a system being capable of outperforming > one with the same number of (effective) - much faster - disks > *plus* a dedicated WAL disk pair... unless it is being a little > loose about fsync! I'm happy to believe ext4 is better than ext3 - > but not that much! > > However, its great to have so many different results to compare > against! > > Cheers > > Mark > Hello Mark, For the record, this is a 'base' debian 5 install (with openVZ but postgreSQL is running on the base hardware, not inside a container) and I have -explicitly- enabled sync in the conf. Eg; fsync = on # turns forced synchronization on or off synchronous_commit = on # immediate fsync at commit #wal_sync_method = fsync # the default is the first option Infact, if I turn -off- sync commit, it gets about 200 -slower- rather than faster. Curiously, I also have an intel x25-m winging it's way here for testing/benching under postgreSQL (along with a vertex 120gb). I had one of the nice lads on the OCZ forum bench against a 30gb vertex ssd, and if you think -my- TPS was crazy.. you should have seen his. postgres@rob-desktop:~$ /usr/lib/postgresql/8.3/bin/pgbench -c 24 -t 12000 test_db starting vacuum...end. transaction type: TPC-B (sort of) scaling factor: 100 number of clients: 24 number of transactions per client: 12000 number of transactions actually processed: 288000/288000 tps = 3662.200088 (including connections establishing) tps = 3664.823769 (excluding connections establishing) (Nb; Thread here; http://www.ocztechnologyforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=54038 ) Curiously, I think with SSD's there may have to be an 'off' flag if you put the xlog onto an ssd. It seems to complain about 'too frequent checkpoints'. I can't wait for -either- of the drives to arrive. I want to see in -my- system what the speed is like for SSD's. The dataset I have to work with is fairly small (30-40GB) so, using an 80GB ssd (even a few raided) is possible for me. Thankfully ;) Regards Stef (ps. I should note, running postgreSQL in a prod environment -without- a nice UPS is never going to happen on my watch, so, turning on write-cache (to me) seems like a no-brainer really if it makes this kind of boost possible) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iEYEARECAAYFAknTfKMACgkQANG7uQ+9D9XZ7wCfdU3JDXj1f2Em9dt7GdcxRbWR eHUAn1zDb3HKEiAb0d/0R1MubtE44o/k =HXmP -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance