Re: Oracle Raw Partitions

1. Gordon wrote:
   >
   > Has anyone had experience with Oracle raw partitions? If so, I'd
   > appreciate any reactions to them. In particular, I'd like to know:
   >
   > 1. Do they provide any performance gain over file systems?
   >
   

In UNIX they definitely do. Not in I/O speed, but you'll spend less CPU to do the I/O (sound like a paradox? It isn't...). Having said that, some of the new UNIX file systems in the latest versions let ORACLE access pages in their cache via pointers, rather than having to copy to the ORACLE cache. How well that works has never been proven conclusively.

> 2. Are they really harder to manage?
>

Not really. Given a good logical volume manager like the ones provided by HP, Pyramid, IBM and many others, it's dirt easy. With command line stuff though it's murder! As for backups/restores, no problem with most modern versions of UNIX. Older ones require knowledge of the obscure intricacies of the dd command.

> I've read some literature already; however,
> personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!

Read more. You need to understand the historical reasons behind them to be able to ascertain what your version of UNIX is really doing. What your manufacturer tells you their UNIX does and what it REALLY does are sometimes two completely different things...

--
Cheers
Nuno Souto
D.C.S. P/L
e-mail: nsouto_at_acay.com.au Received on Tue Sep 01 1998 - 07:43:28 CDT