> We have a database with lots of small simultaneous writes and reads > (millions every day) and are looking at buying a good hardware for this. > > What are your suggestions. What we are currently looking at is. > > Dual Quad Core Intel > 8 - 12 GB RAM > > 10 disks total. > > 4 x 146 GB SAS disk in RAID 1+0 for database > 6 x 750 GB SATA disks in RAID 1+0 or RAID 5 for OS and transactions logs. > > Good RAID controller with lots of memory and BBU.
I have very positive experiences with HP's DL360 and DL380. The latter slightly more expandable (2U vs. 1U). I have used the internal p400i-controller with 512 MB cache on the DL380 and bought an external p800-controller (512 MB cache as well) and a MSA-70-cabinet. I've have 11 disks in raid-6 (one hotspare). I don't see any reason to mix sas- and sata-disks with different sizes. I'd go for sas-disks, smaller and faster, less power and heat. Raid 1+0 or raid-6 does not seem to make much of a difference today as it used to if you have more than 6-7 disks. The DL380 is a 4-way woodcrest at 3 GHz and 16 GB ram and the DL360 is a two-way woodcrest at 2.66 GHz with 16 GB. My personal preference is FreeBSD and the DL3x0-servers all run without problems on this platform. But choose your OS depending on what you're most comfortable with. And choose hardware according to what your OS supports. Areca-controllers may also be worth looking into but I haven't tried these myself. Our largest table has 85 mill. entries. -- regards Claus When lenity and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentlest gamester is the soonest winner. Shakespeare -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list (pgsql-performance@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-performance
