Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-19 Thread Matthew

On Mon, 18 Feb 2008, Tobias Brox wrote:

We actually have some postgres databases that are read-only, others that
can be rebuilt by a script or from some old backup, and yet others that
can be wiped completely without ill effects ... and others where we
would prefer to keep all the data, but it would be no disaster if we
lose some.


If there's not much write traffic, the WAL won't be used much anyway. 
If you really don't care much about the integrity, then the best option is 
probably to put the WAL on ramfs.


Having said that, flash is cheaper than RAM. Why not just get a bigger 
flash device? The too many writes wear it out argument is mostly not 
true nowadays anyway.


Matthew

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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-19 Thread Andrew Sullivan
On Tue, Feb 19, 2008 at 02:48:55PM +, Matthew wrote:
 If there's not much write traffic, the WAL won't be used much anyway. 

You still have checkpoints.

 If you really don't care much about the integrity, then the best option is 
 probably to put the WAL on ramfs.

Um, that will cause the WAL to go away in the event of device crash.  Surely
that's a bad thing?

A


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[PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread Kathirvel, Jeevanandam
Hi,

I want to disable Write Ahead Log (WAL) completely because
of following reasons,

 

1.  I am running Linux on the Compact Flash, which has limited
memory; I can't afford disk space of 32MB for pg_xlog folder. (
checkpoints_segments = 1)

 

2.  CF has own limitation with respect to number of writes (I/O
operation).

 

3.  And, Our Database is Small and embedded as part of system (along
with web-server, drivers). We may not require data recovery from the
pg_xlog folder. It is not an enterprise application.

 

Please give your inputs, to resolve this issue..

 

Thanks,

Jeeva...



Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread hubert depesz lubaczewski
On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 02:41:50PM +0530, Kathirvel, Jeevanandam wrote:
 I want to disable Write Ahead Log (WAL) completely because
 of following reasons,

basically, you can't disable it.

regards,

depesz

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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread Kathirvel, Jeevanandam
Hi Depesz,

Is there way to minimize the I/O operation on disk/CF.

Can I create RAM file system and point the pg_xlog files to RAM
location instead of CF.  whether this will work?

Regards,
Jeeva

-Original Message-
From: hubert depesz lubaczewski [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: Monday, February 18, 2008 2:50 PM
To: Kathirvel, Jeevanandam
Cc: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 02:41:50PM +0530, Kathirvel, Jeevanandam wrote:
 I want to disable Write Ahead Log (WAL) completely because
 of following reasons,

basically, you can't disable it.

regards,

depesz

-- 
quicksil1er: postgres is excellent, but like any DB it requires a
highly paid DBA.  here's my CV! :)
http://www.depesz.com/ - blog dla ciebie (i moje CV)

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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread hubert depesz lubaczewski
On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 03:00:47PM +0530, Kathirvel, Jeevanandam wrote:
   Is there way to minimize the I/O operation on disk/CF.
   Can I create RAM file system and point the pg_xlog files to RAM
 location instead of CF.  whether this will work?

it will, but in case you'll lost power you will also (most probably)
loose your database.

depesz

-- 
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highly paid DBA.  here's my CV! :)
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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread A. Kretschmer
am  Mon, dem 18.02.2008, um 14:41:50 +0530 mailte Kathirvel, Jeevanandam 
folgendes:
 Hi,
 
 I want to disable Write Ahead Log (WAL) completely because of
  
 
 Please give your inputs, to resolve this issue..


Change the destination for this log to /dev/null


Andreas
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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread Erik Jones


On Feb 18, 2008, at 3:32 AM, hubert depesz lubaczewski wrote:

On Mon, Feb 18, 2008 at 03:00:47PM +0530, Kathirvel, Jeevanandam  
wrote:

Is there way to minimize the I/O operation on disk/CF.
Can I create RAM file system and point the pg_xlog files to RAM
location instead of CF.  whether this will work?


it will, but in case you'll lost power you will also (most probably)
loose your database.


Right.  Without the xlog directory you'll have very little chance of  
ever doing any kind of clean stop/start of your database.  If you  
don't need the reliability offered by Postgres's use of transaction  
logs you'll probably be much better served with a different database  
or even a completely different storage scheme than trying to make  
Postgres fit that bill.


Erik Jones

DBA | Emma®
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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615.292.0777 (fax)

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Re: [PERFORM] Disable WAL completely

2008-02-18 Thread Tobias Brox
[Erik Jones]
 Right.  Without the xlog directory you'll have very little chance of  
 ever doing any kind of clean stop/start of your database.  If you  
 don't need the reliability offered by Postgres's use of transaction  
 logs you'll probably be much better served with a different database  
 or even a completely different storage scheme than trying to make  
 Postgres fit that bill.

We actually have some postgres databases that are read-only, others that
can be rebuilt by a script or from some old backup, and yet others that
can be wiped completely without ill effects ... and others where we
would prefer to keep all the data, but it would be no disaster if we
lose some.  Maybe we would be better off not using postgres for those
purposes, but it's oh so much easier for us to stick to one database
system ;-)

We've considered both running postgres from a ram-disk and to have the
fsync turned off for some of our databases, but right now we're running
all off one host, fsync didn't reduce the performance that much, and
after one disasterous power failure we considered that it was not worth
the effort to have fsync turned off.

That being said, postgres is probably not an optimal solution for an
embedded system running on flash memory ;-)


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