Will a 2nd CPU boost Read Performance - NT/Oracle8

Hi.

I'm looking at boosting read performance on our logging database. It acquires time-series data at between 10 & 50 Hz, 24 hours/day for up to 12 weeks at a time. While it's getting data, we often run queries against it.

Essentially, we're doing a stack of inserts, some very large selects and virtually no updates.

I want to improve as far as possible the performance on selects. The machine is running NT Server 4 SP3 and Oracle 7.3, soon to go to Oracle 8. Currently 128Mb RAM and 18 Gb RAID5 disk in 4x9Gb drives. We're going to double the RAM (because we can cheaply) and replace the disks with 4x18Gb disks mirrored. I *can't* easily put on more disks due to physical restrictions; this thing is on a ship and space is tight. Database size is somewhat over 6 Gb and growing fast, with 2 very large tables which are indexed for performance.

So...is adding a second CPU likely to be worth the effort, considering that the write speed is acceptable, but the read speed needs improvement? A select statement may easily fetch a resultset of 240,000 rows (30 days data at 8640 rows/day).

BTW, when, oh when, is Oracle going to get a SQL92 timestamp data type?

TIA, Peter Wiley

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