Received: from maia.hub.org (maia-5.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7B6E26327B5 for ; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:18:11 -0300 (ADT) Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86]) by maia.hub.org (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 33650-05 for ; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 11:18:04 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from www.postnewspapers.com.au (www.postnewspapers.com.au [202.4.227.11]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4ACF2632411 for ; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 08:18:04 -0300 (ADT) Received: from mail.postnewspapers.com.au (202-89-185-120.static.dsl.amnet.net.au [202.89.185.120]) by www.postnewspapers.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id 83BCD9F80; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:17:59 +0800 (WST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mail.postnewspapers.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTP id DC24AAE857; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:15:39 +0800 (WST) X-Virus-Scanned: Debian amavisd-new at postnewspapers.com.au Received: from mail.postnewspapers.com.au ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mail.postnewspapers.com.au [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id xxf1pOJI7Lex; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:15:33 +0800 (WST) Received: from [10.1.1.6] (124-168-255-56.dyn.iinet.net.au [124.168.255.56]) (using TLSv1 with cipher DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (Client CN "Craig Ringer", Issuer "POST Certificate Authority" (verified OK)) by mail.postnewspapers.com.au (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id BC9E4AE851; Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:15:33 +0800 (WST) Message-ID: <4C403FE1.8080209@postnewspapers.com.au> Date: Fri, 16 Jul 2010 19:17:53 +0800 From: Craig Ringer User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.1.9) Gecko/20100423 Lightning/1.0b1 Thunderbird/3.0.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ben Chobot CC: Ryan Wexler , PostgreSQL - Performance Subject: Re: performance on new linux box References: <4C360677.1090608@emolecules.com> <95971335.20100708211351@erwied.eu> <488953776.20100708213233@erwied.eu> <4C35E4CA020000250003327E@gw.wicourts.gov> <4C363CAE.7010401@emolecules.com> <4C36462E.1080405@emolecules.com> <0BC62364-BD19-41E0-A483-677474CD5A5D@richrelevance.com> <6A7F9A16-F50B-43AE-B349-174726564292@silentmedia.com> In-Reply-To: X-Enigmail-Version: 1.0.1 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=0.79 tagged_above=-10 required=5 tests=BAYES_50=0.8, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01 X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 201007/259 X-Sequence-Number: 39648 On 16/07/10 06:18, Ben Chobot wrote: > There are also caches on all your disk drives. Write caching there is always dangerous, which is why almost all raid cards always disable the hard drive write caching, with or without a BBU. I'm not even sure how many raid cards let you enable the write cache on a drive... hopefully, not many. AFAIK Disk drive caches can be safe to leave in write-back mode (ie write cache enabled) *IF* the OS uses write barriers (properly) and the drive understands them. Big if. -- Craig Ringer