Re: Linux - postgres RAID

On Jan 23, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Rick Gigger wrote:

> I figure this would be a good place to ask. I want to build / buy a
> new linux postgres box.  I was wondering if anyone on this list had
> some experience with this they'd like to share.  I'm thinking
> somewhere in the $7k - 15k range.  The post important things are
> write speed to the disk and good linux driver support for the raid
> card.  Can anyone recommend a specific raid card / server vendor?

It'll depend on what you're planning on using it for. Performance
requirements, capacity
and so on.

For fast writes you'll probably want something like RAID10 with lots
of spindles. SCSI
is likely to be somewhat faster, but a lot more expensive. For SATA
RAID most people
like the 3ware and Areca cards. I'm using this system, from ASA, for
pretty much that
and it seems OK. 5U server, 24 external bay, 2 internal bay capacity.
And it's opterons,
which seem to be a bit more PG-friendly than Xeons. It uses the 3ware
9550SX card.
(The general opinion here seems to be that the Areca cards are
somewhat "better"
than the 3wares, but a lot more expensive).

http://www.asaservers.com/config_system.asp?config_id=5USATA

Cheers,
   Steve