Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X

We use PostgreSQL 7.x on both OS X and Linux. We used to run OS X in
production, but due to numerous problems we switched to Linux. OS X
was not stable at all, especially under load. It was also a poor
performer under load or not.

In my tests, a P3/800, 512MB RAM (100MHz bus) was consistently faster
at all queries than a G4/1.25GHz, 1.5GB RAM (266MHz bus) for our
application. Both machines had single IDE drives.

Another thing to consider is that you can only get ATA drives with
Apple hardware. SCSI is not available from Apple, and SCSI devices
have very poor support under OS X. If a server with ATA drives goes
down at the wrong time, you can lose data. This happened to us with
our production OS X server last year. An extended power outage ran
out the UPS battery, the shutdown script did not stop the server in
time, and we had to restore from an earlier backup. For details on
why this can happen with ATA drives, see this thread:

<http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2003-10/msg01343.php>

Overall, PostgreSQL has been rock solid, very fast, and headache-free
on Linux. A complete change from OS X. Our main production
PostgreSQL server has been up for 234 days now. In that period, the
only downtime for PostgreSQL has been for planned upgrades.

As a side note, we've also had major problems running multi-threaded
servers on OS X which run great (stable and much, much faster) on
Linux.

- Jeff

>We currently are running a data intensive web service on a Mac using
>4D. The developers of our site are looking at converting this web
>service to PostgreSQL. We will have a backup of our three production
>servers at our location. The developers are recommending that I
>purchase a 2GHz Dual Processor G5 with between 2GB and 4 GB RAM.
>They say that this configuration would be able to easily run a copy
>of all three production servers. My question is: has anybody had any
>experience comparing the performance of PostgreSQL on a G5 Mac
>versus a PC running Linux? Can anyone tell me if there are any
>benefits of running PostgreSQL on one platform over the other.
>Anything that can help me make the best decision would be
>appreciated.
>
>--
>James Strickland - MCP
>IT Manager
>American Roamer
>901-377-8585
>http://www.americanroamer.com
>
>
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--

Jeff Bohmer
VisionLink, Inc.
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303.402.0170 x121
http://www.visionlink.org/
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