Re: WAL+Os on a single disk

From: Matthew Wakeling <matthew(at)flymine(dot)org>
To: Scott Marlowe <scott(dot)marlowe(at)gmail(dot)com>
Cc: Anj Adu <fotographs(at)gmail(dot)com>, pgsql-performance(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: WAL+Os on a single disk
Date: 2010-06-24 09:14:00
Message-ID: alpine.DEB.2.00.1006241009510.2534@aragorn.flymine.org
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On Wed, 23 Jun 2010, Scott Marlowe wrote:
>> We have a 12 x 600G hot swappable disk system (raid 10)
>> and 2 internal disk  ( 2x 146G)
>>
>> Does it make sense to put the WAL and OS on the internal disks
>
> So for us, the WAL and OS and logging on the same data set works well.

Generally, it is recommended that you put the WAL onto a separate disc to
the data. However, in this case, I would be careful. It may be that the 12
disc array is more capable. Specifically, it is likely that the 12-disc
array has a battery backed cache, but the two internal drives (RAID 1
presumably) do not. If this is the case, then putting the WAL on the
internal drives will reduce performance, as you will only be able to
commit a transaction once per revolution of the internal discs. In
contrast, if the WAL is on a battery backed cache array, then you can
commit much more frequently.

Test it and see.

Matthew

--
I don't want the truth. I want something I can tell parliament!
-- Rt. Hon. Jim Hacker MP

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