Re: file system and raid performance

david@lang.hm

From: david@lang.hm
To: Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>
Cc: "M. Edward (Ed) Borasky" <znmeb@cesmail.net>, Bruce Momjian <bruce@momjian.us>, Mark Mielke <mark@mark.mielke.cc>, Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>, Mark Wong <markwkm@gmail.com>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Date: 2008-12-08T20:51:39Z
Lists: pgsql-performance
On Mon, 8 Dec 2008, Scott Marlowe wrote:

> On Sun, Dec 7, 2008 at 10:59 PM, M. Edward (Ed) Borasky
> <znmeb@cesmail.net> wrote:
>> Ah, but shouldn't a PostgreSQL (or any other database, for that matter)
>> have its own set of filesystems tuned to the application's I/O patterns?
>> Sure, there are some people who need to have all of their eggs in one
>> basket because they can't afford multiple baskets. For them, maybe the
>> OS defaults are the right choice. But if you're building a
>> database-specific server, you can optimize the I/O for that.
>
> It's really about a cost / benefits analysis.  20 years ago file
> systems were slow and buggy and a database could, with little work,
> outperform them.  Nowadays, not so much.  I'm guessing that the extra
> cost and effort of maintaining a file system for pgsql outweighs any
> real gain you're likely to see performance wise.

especially with the need to support the new 'filesystem' on many different 
OS types.

David Lang

> But I'm sure that if you implemented one that outran XFS / ZFS / ext3
> et. al. people would want to hear about it.
>
>