Subject: Re: Michael: printing+reformatting hda13 from ext2 to hfs
From: Ruprecht, Chris (cruprech@compucom.com)
Date: Thu Aug 23 2001 - 15:01:38 MDT
Hi Chris,
Well, I'd love to keep the DB in Memory, but, with 'only' 7.7 million
records, the db size is currently about 6 GB. I expect this to rise to
about 50 GB in the near future, this is when we will start to throw out
'historical' data. unfortunately, I can't keep all that in physical RAM
but on the other hand, it is unlikely that old data (older than a week)
will be accessed by anybody doing day-to-day operations. The user might
some time run a report for the last month, but that's about it. So, most
of the data will just sit there, unused, until purged.
I'm not sure how much RAM the current Macs can take, but surely, Memory
is not really a subject any more - my PB Pismo memory went down to $49
for a 512 MB (2-2-2 memory) module. 256 MB PC133, I saw for $25...
Best regards,
Chris
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christopher Murtagh [mailto:christopher.murtagh@mcgill.ca]
> Sent: Thursday, August 23, 2001 3:13 PM
> To: yellowdog-general@lists.yellowdoglinux.com
> Subject: RE: RE: Re: Michael: printing+reformatting hda13 from ext2 to
> hfs
>
>
> On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Ruprecht, Chris wrote:
> >I have worked 'on' the machine before and it's pretty fast,
> it used to
> >support 500+ users simultaneously, but I have never actually seen the
> >box itself. AFAIK, it has 4 GB of RAM and some RAID disks,
> but again, no
> >details.
>
> Wow, 4GB of RAM is better than anything you'll get on a G4! This will
> likely help with your potential IO problem as well if you can
> get a lot of
> your tables in RAM.
>
> >But, at this point in time, as I'm not sure when I can get the Alpha
> >machine, I would like to know what the speed differences
> between a Mac
> >and an Intel box would be. I know the G4 is way fastern than
> the Intel
> >chips, but a machine is not just the processor alone and the
> times where
> >I fall for the marketing hype of this or that company went
> out with the
> >70s ;).
>
> I wouldn't say that a G4 is 'way faster' than an Intel box. It really
> depends on what you are doing. If you were running Photoshop
> bakeoffs with
> Steve Jobs, then go for the G4, not so sure about the real
> world though.
>
> >I'm after real life database performance details.
> Unfortunately, my YDL
> >box, a PM 9600, running YDL 1.2.1, is a little 'aged' and I would not
> >quite trust any speed tests I do with it. The internal SCSI adaptor
> >tells me that it syncs at 5 MB/sec to the 18 GB Ultra160
> drive, I have
> >in there. I know, I should try an adaptec 29160 but the only
> one I have
> >(actually a 39160) is PC-only and the Mac doesn't recognize it, no
> >matter how hard I try.
>
> I'm currently using ATTO PCIExpressPro cards and they work
> really well
> (Ultra-2 SCSI though). I do have one Ultra-3 card, but last
> time I tried
> it, it wasn't supported by the kernel (2.2.17). I might try
> it again with
> a 2.4 kernel.
>
> > I could go and throw a lot of money at this old box, but
> it's not worth
> >it, so I'm not even going to try. But I'm also not quite willing to
> >invest into one of the new G4 (yet), since I don't know what it's
> >performance will be.
>
> We are currently running PostgreSQL on a Dual G4/500 here
> with 512MB of
> RAM. Our course calendar is now online for the first time, and we have
> hundreds of students looking up course info. Performance is
> pretty good
> (better than we had expected) and we aren't even using a
> kernel that uses
> the 2nd CPU. I'm hoping to upgrade the kernel so that I can
> use the second
> CPU and more RAM in the near future.
>
> One thing is certain though... keep your database and web server on
> separate hardware. You want as much of your DB cached in RAM
> as possible
> (ideally all of it), and you don't want your web server
> bumping it out of
> the cache for web pages. Also, this lets you update hardware
> on one while
> the other is still running. Luckily, the cost of the G4s
> (compared to DEC
> machines that support 4GB of RAM) is pretty cheap, so bang for buck is
> pretty good.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Chris
>
>
> --
>
> Christopher Murtagh
> Webmaster / Sysadmin
> Web Communications Group
> McGill University
> Montreal, Quebec
> Canada
>
>
>
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