Re: How to make a REALLY FAST db server?

On Mon, 10 Sep 2001, Steve Wolfe wrote:

> So, why did I say that I don't use IDE for high-performance machines?
> IDE has limitations.

Mainly, the fact that IDE controllers require far more CPU involvement
than any SCSI controller, especially on a saturated bus. A good SCSI
controller can stay below 2% under almost any circumstance. A bad IDE one
can go above 20%. I don't think I should have to say any more. ^_^

> Luckily, with the 4-way interleaved memory, it'll take up to 16 gigs,
> and with 16 slots, there's a lot of room to add more. : )

And I was assuming a non server-class. Stupid me. Yeah, why 2GB? Hell,
I'd put in the 16GB, and let it start caching result sets in memory.
Even if Postgres doesn't allow such fine-grained control of various
memory-hogging caching schemes now, it may add them later for
optimization's sake. Memory is cheap. More *IS* the answer these days
when concerning RAM.

Besides, if you have a small database (5-10GB), you could serve it from
a RAM device. Can't get much faster than that. ^_^

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