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Date: Mon, 5 May 2008 16:11:27 -0400 (EDT)
From: Greg Smith <gsmith@gregsmith.com>
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To: Scott Marlowe <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>
cc: "Campbell, Lance" <lance@uiuc.edu>, pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: Backup causing poor performance - suggestions
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On Mon, 5 May 2008, Scott Marlowe wrote:

> Other than that, you might wanna look at a faster / better RAID 
> controller in the future.  One with lots of battery backed cache set to 
> write back.

Hopefully Lance's PERC 6/I SAS already has its battery installed.  The 6/I 
with 256MB of cache is decent enough that I'm not sure getting a better 
controller would be a better investment than, say, adding more disks and 
splitting the database I/O usefully among them.

Upgrading to PG 8.3 comes to mind as another option I'd consider before 
getting desparate enough to add/swap controller cards, which is always a 
scary thing on production servers.

--
* Greg Smith gsmith@gregsmith.com http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD