Re: Raw disk or UNIX file system?

You probably want to build your production database on raw partitions. Your test databases should probably use regular UNIX files.

Most of the complaints about raw partitions have to do with file management issues like backup. We have found that raw partitions are no more difficult to deal with than regular file systems. The 'dd' utility works. It may not be fancy or fast, but it works. Many vendors provide a fast dd type utility.

Some options like OPS (Oracle Parallel Server) require the use of raw partitions on most if not all platforms.

The loss of the ability to use the auto-extend option for a tablespace does not bother me because 1) No production database should ever extend on its own as far as I am concerned, and 2) we want control over how much space is consumed by our test systems since the same space auto-extend would take is where we have to build our next test database for upgrades. Disk may be cheap, but controllers are not!

Roger Tomas <tomasr_at_agcs.com> wrote in article <359AB39B.ED91D771_at_agcs.com>...
> Am just becoming new to Oracle. I assume Oracle lets you
> use either UNIX files or raw disk space. I had one person
> tell me Oracle recommends UNIX files.
>
> I find this hard to believe. The UNIX file system is an
> extra layer not optimized for retrieving data from a table.
> It's also a buffering mechanism that could ptentially lie
> to Oracle about commited data actually being out on disk.
>
> Which is better?
>
> Roger Tomas
> AG Communication Systems
>
>
>
Received on Thu Jul 02 1998 - 09:50:50 CDT