On 5/26/09 6:52 PM, "Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > On Tue, May 26, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Scott Carey <scott@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> On 5/26/09 6:17 PM, "Greg Smith" <gsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >>> On Tue, 26 May 2009, Joshua D. Drake wrote: >>> >>>> CMD doesn't rent hardware you would have to provide that, Rack Space >>>> does. >>> >>> Part of the idea was to avoid buying a stack of servers, if this were just >>> a "where do I put the boxes at?" problem I'd have just asked you about it >>> already. I forgot to check Rack Space earlier, looks like they have Dell >>> servers with up to 8 drives and a RAID controller in them available. >>> Let's just hope it's not one of the completely useless PERC models there; >>> can anyone confirm Dell's PowerEdge R900 has one of the decent performing >>> PERC6 controllers I've heard rumors of in it? >> >> Every managed hosting provider I've seen uses RAID controllers and support >> through the hardware provider. If its Dell its 99% likely a PERC (OEM'd >> LSI). >> HP, theirs (not sure who the OEM is), Sun theirs (OEM'd Adaptec). >> >> PERC6 in my testing was certainly better than PERC5, but its still sub-par >> in sequential transfer rate or scaling up past 6 or so drives in a volume. >> >> I did go through the process of using a managed hosting provider and getting >> custom RAID card and storage arrays -- but that takes a lot of hand-holding >> and time, and will most certainly cause setup delays and service issues when >> things go wrong and you've got the black-sheep server. Unless its >> absolutely business critical to get that last 10%-20% performance, I would >> go with whatever they have with no customization. >> >> Most likely if you ask for a database setup, they'll give you 6 or 8 drives >> in raid-5. Most of what these guys do is set up LAMP cookie-cutters... >> >>> >>> Craig, I share your concerns about outsourced hosting, but as the only >>> custom application involved is one I build my own RPMs for I'm not really >>> concerned about the system getting screwed up software-wise. The idea >>> here is that I might rent an eval system to confirm performance is >>> reasonable, and if it is then I'd be clear to get a bigger stack of them. >>> Luckily there's a guy here who knows a bit about benchmarking for this >>> sort of thing... > > Yeah, the OP would be much better served ordering a server with an > Areca or Escalade / 3ware controller setup and ready to go, shipped to > the hosting center and sshing in and doing the rest than letting a > hosted solution company try to compete. You can get a nice 16x15K SAS > disk machine with an Areca controller, dual QC cpus, and 16 to 32 gig > ram for $6000 to $8000 ready to go. We've since repurposed our Dell / > PERC machines as file servers and left the real database server work > to our aberdeen machines. Trying to wring reasonable performance out > of most Dell servers is a testament to frustration. > For a permanent server, yes. But for a sort lease? You have to go with what is easily available for lease, or work out something with a provider where they buy the HW from you and manage/lease it back (some do this, but all I've ever heard of involved 12+ servers to do so and sign on for 1 or 2 years). Expecting full I/O performance out of a DELL with a PERC is not really possible, but maybe that's not as important as a certain pricing model or the flexibility? That is really an independent business decision. I'll also but a caveat to the '3ware' above -- the last few I've used were slower than the PERC (9650 series versus PERC6, 9550 versus PERC5 -- all tests with 12 SATA drives raid 10). I have no experience with the 3ware 9690 series (SAS) though -- those might be just fine. -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance
