Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-30 Thread Whit Armstrong
Thanks, Scott. I went with ext3 for the OS -- it makes Ops feel a lot better. ext2 for a separate xlogs partition, and xfs for the data. ext2's drawbacks are not relevant for a small partition with just xlog data, but are a problem for the OS. Can you suggest an appropriate size for the

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-30 Thread Whit Armstrong
Thanks to everyone who helped me arrive at the config for this server. Here is my first set of benchmarks using the standard pgbench setup. The benchmark numbers seem pretty reasonable to me, but I don't have a good feel for what typical numbers are. Any feedback is appreciated. -Whit the

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-29 Thread Scott Carey
On 4/29/09 7:28 AM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks, Scott. I went with ext3 for the OS -- it makes Ops feel a lot better. ext2 for a separate xlogs partition, and xfs for the data. ext2's drawbacks are not relevant for a small partition with just xlog data, but are

[PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
I have the opportunity to set up a new postgres server for our production database. I've read several times in various postgres lists about the importance of separating logs from the actual database data to avoid disk contention. Can someone suggest a typical partitioning scheme for a postgres

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Marlowe
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: I have the opportunity to set up a new postgres server for our production database.  I've read several times in various postgres lists about the importance of separating logs from the actual database data to avoid

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
Thanks, Scott. Just to clarify you said: postgres.  So, my pg_xlog and all OS and logging stuff goes on the RAID-10 and the main store for the db goes on the RAID-10. Is that meant to be that the pg_xlog and all OS and logging stuff go on the RAID-1 and the real database (the

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Kenneth Marshall
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:56:25AM -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote: On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks, Scott. Just to clarify you said: postgres. ?So, my pg_xlog and all OS and logging stuff goes on the RAID-10 and the main store for

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Craig James
Whit Armstrong wrote: I have the opportunity to set up a new postgres server for our production database. I've read several times in various postgres lists about the importance of separating logs from the actual database data to avoid disk contention. Can someone suggest a typical partitioning

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Alan Hodgson
On Tuesday 28 April 2009, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: Additionally are there any clear choices w/ regard to filesystem types? Our choices would be xfs, ext3, or ext4. xfs consistently delivers much higher sequential throughput than ext3 (up to 100%), at least on my

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Craig James
Kenneth Marshall wrote: Additionally are there any clear choices w/ regard to filesystem types? ?Our choices would be xfs, ext3, or ext4. Well, there's a lot of people who use xfs and ext3. XFS is generally rated higher than ext3 both for performance and reliability. However, we run Centos 5

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Kevin Grittner
Craig James craig_ja...@emolecules.com wrote: After a reading various articles, I thought that noop was the right choice when you're using a battery-backed RAID controller. The RAID controller is going to cache all data and reschedule the writes anyway, so the kernal schedule is irrelevant

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
echo noop /sys/block/hdx/queue/scheduler can this go into /etc/init.d somewhere? or does that change stick between reboots? -Whit On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 2:16 PM, Craig James craig_ja...@emolecules.com wrote: Kenneth Marshall wrote: Additionally are there any clear choices w/ regard to

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Kevin Grittner
Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: echo noop /sys/block/hdx/queue/scheduler can this go into /etc/init.d somewhere? We set the default for the kernel in the /boot/grub/menu.lst file. On a kernel line, add elevator=xxx (where xxx is your choice of scheduler). -Kevin --

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Marlowe
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Kenneth Marshall k...@rice.edu wrote: On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:56:25AM -0600, Scott Marlowe wrote: On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 11:48 AM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks, Scott. Just to clarify you said: postgres. ?So, my pg_xlog

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
I see. Thanks for everyone for replying. The whole discussion has been very helpful. Cheers, Whit On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 3:13 PM, Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov wrote: Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote:   echo noop /sys/block/hdx/queue/scheduler can this go into

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Marlowe
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:37 PM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote:  echo noop /sys/block/hdx/queue/scheduler can this go into /etc/init.d somewhere? or does that change stick between reboots? I just stick in /etc/rc.local -- Sent via pgsql-performance mailing list

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Marlowe
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 12:40 PM, Kenneth Marshall k...@rice.edu wrote: On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 01:30:59PM -0500, Kevin Grittner wrote: Craig James craig_ja...@emolecules.com wrote: After a reading various articles, I thought that noop was the right choice when you're using a battery-backed

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Carey
On 4/28/09 11:16 AM, Craig James craig_ja...@emolecules.com wrote: Kenneth Marshall wrote: Additionally are there any clear choices w/ regard to filesystem types? ?Our choices would be xfs, ext3, or ext4. Well, there's a lot of people who use xfs and ext3. XFS is generally rated higher than

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Carey
server information: Dell PowerEdge 2970, 8 core Opteron 2384 6 1TB hard drives with a PERC 6i 64GB of ram We're running a similar configuration: PowerEdge 8 core, PERC 6i, but we have 8 of the 2.5 10K 384GB disks. When I asked the same question on this forum, I was advised to just put

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
are there any other xfs settings that should be tuned for postgres? I see this post mentions allocation groups. does anyone have suggestions for those settings? http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-admin/2009-01/msg00144.php what about raid stripe size? does it really make a difference? I

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Whit Armstrong
Thanks, Scott. So far, I've followed a pattern similar to Scott Marlowe's setup. I have configured 2 disks as a RAID 1 volume, and 4 disks as a RAID 10 volume. So, the OS and xlogs will live on the RAID 1 vol and the data will live on the RAID 10 vol. I'm running the memtest on it now, so we

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Marlowe
On Tue, Apr 28, 2009 at 5:58 PM, Scott Carey sc...@richrelevance.com wrote: 1.  If everything is on the same partition/file system, fsyncs from the xlogs may cross-pollute to the data.  Ext3 is notorious for this, though data=writeback limits the effect you especially might not want

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Carey
On 4/28/09 5:02 PM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: are there any other xfs settings that should be tuned for postgres? I see this post mentions allocation groups. does anyone have suggestions for those settings?

Re: [PERFORM] partition question for new server setup

2009-04-28 Thread Scott Carey
On 4/28/09 5:10 PM, Whit Armstrong armstrong.w...@gmail.com wrote: Thanks, Scott. So far, I've followed a pattern similar to Scott Marlowe's setup. I have configured 2 disks as a RAID 1 volume, and 4 disks as a RAID 10 volume. So, the OS and xlogs will live on the RAID 1 vol and the data