Re: PostgreSQL vs. InnoDB performance

On Fri, 2005-06-03 at 04:38, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> Am Freitag, 3. Juni 2005 00:36 schrieb Peter Eisentraut:
> > On a particular system, loading 1 million rows (100 bytes, nothing
> > fancy) into PostgreSQL one transaction at a time takes about 90
> > minutes. Doing the same in MySQL/InnoDB takes about 3 minutes. InnoDB
> > is supposed to have a similar level of functionality as far as the
> > storage manager is concerned, so I'm puzzled about how this can be.
> > Does anyone know whether InnoDB is taking some kind of questionable
> > shortcuts it doesn't tell me about?
>
> So here's another little gem about our friends from Uppsala: If you create a
> table with InnoDB storage and your server does not have InnoDB configured, it
> falls back to MyISAM without telling you.

If you're as used to PostgreSQL doing the right thing as I'm certain you
are, you will get frustrated with type of behaviour from MySQL very
quickly.

The PostgreSQL design philosophy of doing it right, and throwing errors
otherwise is the polar opposite of the MySQL philosophy of design.

> As it turns out, the test done with PostgreSQL vs. real InnoDB results in just
> about identical timings (90 min). The test done using PostgreSQL with fsync
> off vs. MyISAM also results in about identical timings (3 min). So that
> looks much better, although the update performance of PostgreSQL is still a
> lot worse.

I wonder how well they're both run as you increase parallel contention
(both readers and writers) and with a RAID controller with battery
backed cache.

Also, I wonder how well both databases will survive having power removed
while under heavy load...