Reasons not to buy from Sun or Compaq - why get Opteron 252 when a 240 will do just fine for a fraction of the cost, which of course they don't stock, white box all the way baby ;). My box from Sun or Compaq or IBM is 2x the whitebox cost because you can't buy apples to apples. We have a bitchin' DB server for $7.5k
Alex On 10/27/05, Jim C. Nasby <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > 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 > ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend