Re: Sun vs. Mac - best Postgres platform?

--- Andrew Sullivan <andrew(at)libertyrms(dot)info> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2003 at 10:10:54AM -0800, CaptainX0r wrote:
> > > could you post your $PGDATA/postgresql.conf for our
> viewing
> > > pleasure ?
> >
> > max_connections = 64
> > shared_buffers = 65536 # 1/2 total RAM /8K
> > sort_mem = 100000 # min 64, size in KB
> ^^^^^^
> There's your problem. Don't set that anywhere near that high.
> If you run 2 queries that require sorting, _each sort_ can use
> up to
> 100000 K. Which can chew up all your memory pretty fast.

I changed back to the default 1024, and down to the minimum, 64
- no change. I think that was changed simultaneously with some
other parameter (bad, I know) that actually had an affect. I
guess I can remove it.

> > effective_cache_size = 65536 # typically 8KB each
>
> What basis did you have to change this? Have you done work
> figuring out how big the kernel's disk cache is regularly on
> that system?

I read somewhere that this should be set to half the system RAM
size, 64k*8k=512m = 1/2 of the 1 Gig RAM. I guess this is way
off since you're saying that it's disk cache. This agrees with
the documentation. I can't really rely on the (precious little
Solaris postgres) info I find on the net.... ;)

Unfortunately, setting back to 1000 doesn't appear to help.

> > Hannu brings up a good point - one that was debated before
> > my attempts at making Solaris faster. If you were going to
> make a
> > fast postgres server what would you use? Assuming you could
> > afford a SunFire 280R (~$8k?), would that money be better
> > spent on a (say) Dell server running (say) linux? We're
> > doing light
>
> I've been finding FreeBSD way faster than Linux. But yes.

I like to hear this since I'm a big FreeBSD fan. So far I think
I've understood this as: FreeBSD > Linux > OSX > Solaris.

Thanks much for the input,

-X

__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com