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Message-ID: <33c6269f0510280702n2584f59we26b5256cd3422f6@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 28 Oct 2005 10:02:41 -0400
From: Alex Turner <armtuk@gmail.com>
To: "Jim C. Nasby" <jnasby@pervasive.com>
Subject: Re: How much memory?
Cc: Ron Peacetree <rjpeace@earthlink.net>,
	PostgreSQL <martin@portant.com>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
In-Reply-To: <20051027225517.GU63747@pervasive.com>
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References: 
 <7021105.1130452773950.JavaMail.root@elwamui-norfolk.atl.sa.earthlink.net>
	<20051027225517.GU63747@pervasive.com>

Reasons not to buy from Sun or Compaq - why get Opteron 252 when a 240
will do just fine for a fraction of the cost, which of course they
don't stock, white box all the way baby ;).  My box from Sun or Compaq
or IBM is 2x the whitebox cost because you can't buy apples to apples.
 We have a bitchin' DB server for $7.5k

Alex

On 10/27/05, Jim C. Nasby <jnasby@pervasive.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 06:39:33PM -0400, Ron Peacetree wrote:
> > Databases basically come in 4 sizes:
> >
> > 1=3D The entire DB fits into memory.
> > 2=3D The performance critical table(s) fit(s) into memory
> > 3=3D The indexes of the performance critical table(s) fit into memory.
> > 4=3D Neither the performance critical tables nor their indexes fit into=
 memory.
> >
> > Performance decreases (exponentially), and development + maintenance co=
st/difficulty/pain increases (exponentially), as you go down the list.
> >
> > While it is often not possible to be in class "1" above, do everything =
you can to be in at least class "3" and do everything you can to avoid clas=
s "4".
> >
> > At ~$75-$150 per GB as of this post, RAM is the cheapest investment you=
 can make in a high perfomance, low hassle DBMS.  IWill's and Tyan's 16 DIM=
M slot mainboards are worth every penny.
>
> And note that your next investment after RAM should be better disk IO.
> More CPUs *generally* don't buy you much (if anything). My rule of
> thumb: the only time your database should be CPU-bound is if you've got
> a bad design*.
>
> *NOTE: before everyone goes off about query parallelism and big
> in-memory sorts and what-not, keep in mind I said "rule of thumb". :)
> --
> Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant      jnasby@pervasive.com
> Pervasive Software      http://pervasive.com    work: 512-231-6117
> vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf       cell: 512-569-9461
>
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>