Horton

Thread

  1. What is the recommended machine configuration?

    G. Anthony Reina <reina@nsi.edu> — 1998-08-05T20:01:25Z

    We are planning to dedicate a new Pentium II/400 MHz with Red Hat Linux
exclusively to our Postgres database. The database size is several
hundred megs. I have been told that the more RAM I have for the machine,

the faster I'll be able to access the data. Does anyone have any
recommendations on the amount of RAM that would be optimal? If you had
to set up the ideal system to run a Postgres database of, let's say, 1
Gig in size (spread across 10 tables), how would you allocate it in
terms of processor, OS, RAM, hard disk space, etc.?

Thanks.
-Tony Reina

  2. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    pierre@desertmoon.com — 1998-08-05T20:52:40Z

    > 
> We are planning to dedicate a new Pentium II/400 MHz with Red Hat Linux
> exclusively to our Postgres database. The database size is several
> hundred megs. I have been told that the more RAM I have for the machine,
> 
> the faster I'll be able to access the data. Does anyone have any
> recommendations on the amount of RAM that would be optimal? If you had
> to set up the ideal system to run a Postgres database of, let's say, 1
> Gig in size (spread across 10 tables), how would you allocate it in
> terms of processor, OS, RAM, hard disk space, etc.?
> 

I'm not much of an expert but the system I'm putting together has between 15-20
tables, comprising about 250k rows totaling about 1.5-2GB of disk space.

Right now I'm running under BSDi 3.0 with 128MB RAM on a PPRO 200. Performance
is great...almost no issues....

Pierre

  3. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-08-05T21:35:13Z

    On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, G. Anthony Reina wrote:

> We are planning to dedicate a new Pentium II/400 MHz with Red Hat Linux
> exclusively to our Postgres database. The database size is several
> hundred megs. I have been told that the more RAM I have for the machine,
> the faster I'll be able to access the data. Does anyone have any
> recommendations on the amount of RAM that would be optimal? If you had
> to set up the ideal system to run a Postgres database of, let's say, 1
> Gig in size (spread across 10 tables), how would you allocate it in
> terms of processor, OS, RAM, hard disk space, etc.?

I'm going to poke my head up here, as carefully as I can.  This is *not*
meant to start a flame war, I'm just bringing up a point that someone else
made a short while ago..

There was a discussion a little while back (probably prompted by me)
concerning Linux vs FreeBSD, and their "intended uses".  One of the
comments made by a *Linux* user went to the effect that Linux makes a
great desktop computer (ie. MicroSloth Windows replacement), but if you
want a *server* operating system, go with FreeBSD, as it scales better.

This was a comment from a Linux user...there are several Linux users on
the lists, and Thomas (one of the core developers) is one of them, so it
isn't as if PostgreSQL isn't *extensively* tested under Linux...

One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
operating system as an installable package...

Marc G. Fournier                                
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

  4. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Brook Milligan <brook@trillium.nmsu.edu> — 1998-08-05T22:30:50Z

       One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
   operating system as an installable package...

So does FreeBSD, doesn't it?  I know NetBSD does.

Cheers,
Brook

  5. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Marc G. Fournier <scrappy@hub.org> — 1998-08-05T22:45:19Z

    On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, Brook Milligan wrote:

>    One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
>    operating system as an installable package...
> 
> So does FreeBSD, doesn't it?  I know NetBSD does.

	We have it as part of "ports", which means that as long as you
haven't done anything weird to your machine, it will compile, but compile
it you have to do.  RedHat has it as a pre-compiled package that you just
install just as you would any other package, when you install the
operating system...

Marc G. Fournier                                
Systems Administrator @ hub.org 
primary: scrappy@hub.org           secondary: scrappy@{freebsd|postgresql}.org

  6. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@druid.net> — 1998-08-06T00:07:43Z

    Thus spake The Hermit Hacker
> One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
> operating system as an installable package...

With NetBSD too.  I would be surprised if it wasn't in the FreeBSD
packages as well.

-- 
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@{druid|vex}.net>   |  Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/                |  and a sheep voting on
+1 416 424 2871     (DoD#0082)    (eNTP)   |  what's for dinner.

  7. How do I split the data files into 2 hardisks?

    Chairudin Sentosa Harjo <chai@dnet.net.id> — 1998-08-06T02:03:22Z

    Hi all,

I like this mailing list, very helpful.
I have a question regarding splitting data file to more than 1 hardisks.

Currently I have 2 x 2 GB hardisks.
I would like to split files in directory
/usr/local/pgsql/data/base/databasename
to 2 hardisks.

The reason is I want to dump 3 GB ~ 4 GB of data from oracle to postgres to
do testing.
I want to know whether postgres can handle 3 GB ~ 4 GB data, and so some
performance benchmarking. ( Oracle vs Postgres )

I don't have one 4 GB hardisk, so I have to split them.
I am using Linux.
Could any one help me ?

Thanks

Regards
Chai

  8. Re: [SQL] How do I split the data files into 2 hardisks?

    Ludovic Marcotte <ludovic@sophos.ca> — 1998-08-06T02:13:51Z

    
On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Chairudin Sentosa Harjo wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I like this mailing list, very helpful.
> I have a question regarding splitting data file to more than 1 hardisks.
> 
> Currently I have 2 x 2 GB hardisks.
> I would like to split files in directory
> /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/databasename
> to 2 hardisks.
> 
> The reason is I want to dump 3 GB ~ 4 GB of data from oracle to postgres to
> do testing.
> I want to know whether postgres can handle 3 GB ~ 4 GB data, and so some
> performance benchmarking. ( Oracle vs Postgres )
> 
> I don't have one 4 GB hardisk, so I have to split them.
> I am using Linux.
> Could any one help me ?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Regards
> Chai
> 

Hi,
	I don't know if PostgreSQL can do that.. but you could certainly
enabled the linear mode for 'disk appending' in your kernel.

Hope that helps,
			Ludovic

  9. Re: [SQL] How do I split the data files into 2 hardisks?

    selkovjr@mcs.anl.gov — 1998-08-06T05:24:55Z

    Ludovic Marcotte wrote:
> 
> On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Chairudin Sentosa Harjo wrote:
> 
> > Hi all,
> >
> > I like this mailing list, very helpful.
> > I have a question regarding splitting data file to more than 1 hardisks.
> >
> > Currently I have 2 x 2 GB hardisks.
> > I would like to split files in directory
> > /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/databasename
> > to 2 hardisks.
> >
> > The reason is I want to dump 3 GB ~ 4 GB of data from oracle to postgres to
> > do testing.
> > I want to know whether postgres can handle 3 GB ~ 4 GB data, and so some
> > performance benchmarking. ( Oracle vs Postgres )
> >
> > I don't have one 4 GB hardisk, so I have to split them.
> > I am using Linux.
> > Could any one help me ?
> >
> > Thanks
> >
> > Regards
> > Chai
> >
> 
> Hi,
>         I don't know if PostgreSQL can do that.. but you could certainly
> enabled the linear mode for 'disk appending' in your kernel.

or use software RAID (a.k.a. "disk striping") wich may nealy double your
disk performance if you use SCSI or attach IDE drives to separate
controllers.

http://linas.org/linux/Software-RAID/Software-RAID.html

Gene


> 
> Hope that helps,
>                         Ludovic

  10. How do I stop the postmaster?

    Chairudin Sentosa Harjo <chai@dnet.net.id> — 1998-08-06T06:42:12Z

    Hi all,

I started the postmaster by running this command:
/usr/local/psql/bin/postmaster -oe -S -D /usr/local/pgsql/data

Then I type:
psql mydb

Error:
Connection to database 'mydb' failed.
PQexec() -- Request was sent to backend, but backed closed the channel before
responding.
                        This probably means the backend terminated abnormally
before or while
                        processing request.


What is the proper way to terminate the postmaster?

Regards
Chai

  11. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Thomas Good <tomg@nrnet.org> — 1998-08-06T12:20:04Z

    On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, D'Arcy J.M. Cain wrote:

> Thus spake The Hermit Hacker
> > One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
> > operating system as an installable package...
> 
> With NetBSD too.  I would be surprised if it wasn't in the FreeBSD
> packages as well.

And we are working on this for a future release of slackware...

 Cheers,
 Tom

    ----------- Sisters of Charity Medical Center ----------
                    Department of Psychiatry
                              ----     
 Thomas Good, System Administrator            <tomg@q8.nrnet.org>
 North Richmond CMHC/Residential Services     Phone: 718-354-5528
 75 Vanderbilt Ave, Quarters 8                Fax:   718-354-5056
 Staten Island, NY   10304                    www.panix.com/~ugd
                              ----     
 Powered by PostgreSQL 6.3.2 / Perl 5.004 / DBI-0.91::DBD-PG-0.69

  12. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Chris Johnson <cmj@inline-design.com> — 1998-08-06T14:38:49Z

    I remember reading some part of the docs I that mentioned a significant
difference in speed of queries between 64 bit and 32 bit architectures. If
you are planning on using Red Hat Linux you could just as easily swap the
PII for an Alpha and get better performance, higher IO throughput and an
all around better machine.

FYI - RedHat ships with the following 4 postgres related packages on the
alpha:
  postgresql-6.3.2-4.alpha.rpm
  postgresql-clients-6.3.2-4.alpha.rpm
  postgresql-data-6.3.2-4.alpha.rpm
  postgresql-devel-6.3.2-4.alpha.rpm

Anyone with experience using RedHat on Alpha with Postgres care to
comment?

Chris

On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, G. Anthony Reina wrote:

> We are planning to dedicate a new Pentium II/400 MHz with Red Hat Linux
> exclusively to our Postgres database. The database size is several
> hundred megs. I have been told that the more RAM I have for the machine,
> 
> the faster I'll be able to access the data. Does anyone have any
> recommendations on the amount of RAM that would be optimal? If you had
> to set up the ideal system to run a Postgres database of, let's say, 1
> Gig in size (spread across 10 tables), how would you allocate it in
> terms of processor, OS, RAM, hard disk space, etc.?
> 
> Thanks.
> -Tony Reina
> 
>

  13. Re: [SQL] How do I split the data files into 2 hardisks?

    Maarten Boekhold <maartenb@dutepp2.et.tudelft.nl> — 1998-08-06T14:45:51Z

    On Thu, 6 Aug 1998, Chairudin Sentosa Harjo wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> I like this mailing list, very helpful.
> I have a question regarding splitting data file to more than 1 hardisks.
> 
> Currently I have 2 x 2 GB hardisks.
> I would like to split files in directory
> /usr/local/pgsql/data/base/databasename
> to 2 hardisks.
> 
> The reason is I want to dump 3 GB ~ 4 GB of data from oracle to postgres to
> do testing.
> I want to know whether postgres can handle 3 GB ~ 4 GB data, and so some
> performance benchmarking. ( Oracle vs Postgres )
> 
> I don't have one 4 GB hardisk, so I have to split them.
> I am using Linux.
> Could any one help me ?

If your using Linux you can throw those 2 disks in a RAID configuration
as to form one logical disk. You can try striping (RAID 1???) or RAID5 I 
guess....

Maarten

_____________________________________________________________________________
| TU Delft, The Netherlands, Faculty of Information Technology and Systems  |
|                   Department of Electrical Engineering                    |
|           Computer Architecture and Digital Technique section             |
|                          M.Boekhold@et.tudelft.nl                         |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

  14. Re: [SQL] How do I stop the postmaster?

    James Oden <joden@lee.k12.nc.us> — 1998-08-06T17:43:44Z

    > Hi all,
>
> I started the postmaster by running this command:
> /usr/local/psql/bin/postmaster -oe -S -D /usr/local/pgsql/data
>
> Then I type:
> psql mydb
>
> Error:
> Connection to database 'mydb' failed.
> PQexec() -- Request was sent to backend, but backed closed the channel before
> responding.
>                         This probably means the backend terminated abnormally
> before or while
>                         processing request.
>

What user are you logged in as when you try to connect to the database?  If you
are not a users that has also had a postgres account created by create_user this
may happen.  Also, this or other error messages will occur if you try to access
the database as root...james

  15. Re: [SQL] What is the recommended machine configuration?

    Johann Spies <jhspies@alpha.futurenet.co.za> — 1998-08-07T08:55:40Z

    On Wed, 5 Aug 1998, The Hermit Hacker wrote:

> One thing in RedHat's favor, though, is that PostgreSQL comes with the
> operating system as an installable package...

That is also true of Debian Linux.

Johann

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| jhspies@alpha.futurenet.co.za                3201 Pietermaritzburg       |
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