Re: RAW Disks!! on DEC Alpha

From: Robert Young <rcyoung_at_groupz.net>
Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:27:35 -0400
Message-ID: <37C2C7F7.635D05BC@groupz.net>

RAW disks do give some I/O performance boost since they bypass the unix filesystem, but you are extremely limited on how you can backup, restore, or re-arrange your database files afterwards. The normal system routines for handling files (tar, cpio, cp, mv) are not available for raw devices. I have always found the disadvantages to outweigh the advantages. This is esp true in the event you have to restore one or more files from a backup during recovery operations.

You can usually get far more of a performance boost by properly tuning your database to account for the number of I/O channels, available memory, I/O load distribution, proper index creation, etc etc.

KTL wrote:

> Has ANYONE had any experience with setting up RAW disks on a trucluster
> DEC Alpha box with Oracle 8i?
>
> How well does Oracle handle the space?
> How much of a speed increase is there?
> It is worth it overall?
>
> Anything on this topic would be helpful..
>
> -Ken

--
Robert Young
ALI Database Consultants (Oracle and Rdb) 1-877-289-8100 or visit
http://sites.netscape.net/alidatacon/

Received on Tue Aug 24 1999 - 11:27:35 CDT