Message-ID: <4D034015.7040405@2ndquadrant.com>
Date: Sat, 11 Dec 2010 04:10:45 -0500
From: Greg Smith <greg@2ndquadrant.com>
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To: John W Strange <john.w.strange@jpmchase.com>
CC: Benjamin Krajmalnik <kraj@servoyant.com>,
	"pgsql-performance@postgresql.org" <pgsql-performance@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Hardware recommendations
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	<F4E6A2751A2823418A21D4A160B689887B0A4D@fletch.stackdump.local>
	<EF37296944B47C40ADDCCB7BFD6289FE046CA947A9@EMASC201VS01.exchad.jpmchase.net>
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John W Strange wrote:
> http://www.fusionio.com/products/iodrive/ - BEST in slot currently IMHO.
> http://www.intel.com/design/flash/nand/extreme/index.htm?wapkw=(X25-E) - not a bad alternative.
>   

The FusionIO drives are OK, so long as you don't mind the possibility 
that your system will be down for >15 minutes after any unexpected 
crash.  They can do a pretty time consuming verification process on the 
next boot if you didn't shut the server down properly before mounting.

Intel's drives have been so bad about respecting OS cache flush calls 
that I can't recommend them for any PostgreSQL use, due to their 
tendency for the database to get corrupted in the same sort of 
post-crash situation.  See 
http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Reliable_Writes for more background.  If 
you get one of the models that allows being setup for reliability, those 
are so slow that's not even worth the trouble.

-- 
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant US    greg@2ndQuadrant.com   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services and Support        www.2ndQuadrant.us
"PostgreSQL 9.0 High Performance": http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/books