Ingres Disk Setup

From: Karl & Betty Schendel 
Subject: Re: Good drive config for new Ingres box

At 10:34 AM -0700 7/29/99, Todd Boewe wrote:
> ....
>So with 5 available disks (not to be confused with RAID5) would it be more
>efficient to use CA's recommended configuration (disk 1 for OS, disk 2 for
>II_CHECKPOINT/JOURNAL/DUMP/DUALLOG, disk 3 for II_SYSTEM/LOG/WORK, disk 4
>FOR II_DATABASE), then use the 5th disk to spread II_DATABASE across two
>drives, or would it be better to use the 5th drive exclusively for the log?

I am not real happy with the idea of putting work and log together.
I think with 5 drives I would recommend one of two configurations:

The gambler's configuration:
disk 1: OS + journal, disk 2: checkpoint+dump+LOG, disk 3: work,
disk 4, 5 (striped): database
(or minor variations.  e.g. put journal on disk 3 with work.)

The safer but possibly slightly slower configuration:
disk 1: OS + LOG, disk 2: checkpoint+dump+DUAL LOG, disk 3: work+journal,
disk 4, 5 (striped): database

If the drives are not all the same size you can get into a number of
interesting minor variations on the above.

Even better is to espouse Mikey's theory that disks are free, and give yourself
7 disks.  That way you can mirror the log on idle disks, and stripe the work 
area.  Or 9 disks, allowing mirror+stripe for the database too.
With today's disk capacities, you have to ignore the total amount of disk
on the machine, and look at number of spindles.


Karl R. Schendel, Jr.
K/B Computer Associates   schendel@kbcomputer.com
Ingres and Unix Expertise

President, North American Ingres Users Association
president@naiua.org
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