On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 06:39:33PM -0400, Ron Peacetree wrote: > Databases basically come in 4 sizes: > > 1= The entire DB fits into memory. > 2= The performance critical table(s) fit(s) into memory > 3= The indexes of the performance critical table(s) fit into memory. > 4= Neither the performance critical tables nor their indexes fit into memory. > > Performance decreases (exponentially), and development + maintenance > cost/difficulty/pain increases (exponentially), as you go down the list. > > While it is often not possible to be in class "1" above, do everything you > can to be in at least class "3" and do everything you can to avoid class "4". > > At ~$75-$150 per GB as of this post, RAM is the cheapest investment you can > make in a high perfomance, low hassle DBMS. IWill's and Tyan's 16 DIMM slot > mainboards are worth every penny.
And note that your next investment after RAM should be better disk IO. More CPUs *generally* don't buy you much (if anything). My rule of thumb: the only time your database should be CPU-bound is if you've got a bad design*. *NOTE: before everyone goes off about query parallelism and big in-memory sorts and what-not, keep in mind I said "rule of thumb". :) -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 2: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster
