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Message-ID: <dcc563d10809011051s558f8a7bp5beb0dbe181721e4@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2008 11:51:30 -0600
From: "Scott Marlowe" <scott.marlowe@gmail.com>
To: "Thomas Finneid" <tfinneid@student.matnat.uio.no>
Subject: Re: slow update of index during insert/copy
Cc: "Craig Ringer" <craig@postnewspapers.com.au>,
	pgsql-performance@postgresql.org
In-Reply-To: <48BBD22E.4090308@ifi.uio.no>
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References: <48BA9D65.2020001@ifi.uio.no>
	<48BB4A2D.9080404@postnewspapers.com.au> <48BBD22E.4090308@ifi.uio.no>

On Mon, Sep 1, 2008 at 5:29 AM, Thomas Finneid
<tfinneid@student.matnat.uio.no> wrote:

> It does have a sata raid controller, but not have the battery pack, because
> its a develmachine and not a production machine, I thought it was not
> needed. But if you are saying the battery pack enables a cache which enables
> faster disk writes I will consider it.
> Its the first time I have worked with a raid controller, so I suspect I have
> to read up on the features to understand how to utilise it best.

The model of the controller will have a large impact on performance as
well.  The latest fastest RAID controllers have dual core 1.2GHz CPUs
on them, where some slower ones still in produciton are using 333MHz
single core CPUs.  The quality of the firmware, the linux driver (or
windows, or bsd) all have a large impact on the performance of a raid
controller.

Definitely look into the battery backing unit.  But if it's a $250
card, then it might not be enough.