Re: general recommendations for setting block size?

Agreed. In fact, I've been using 4K since V6. And without the slightest impact on performance.

IMHO, it's not dependant on the particular version of ORACLE. More likely, the speed of the disk/controller hardware combination and speed of CPU/memory access.

In most systems built in the last 5 years, 4K is a very good compromise for speed/space. In fact, most of the UNIX implementations nowadays use a default FS block size of 4K. And NT seems to be limited to 4K in its low-level I/O size anyway, so it can't hurt there either.

To check this on any UNIX FS system, get hold of Perl and do a stat("/") or any other FS attach point. The 11th element of the returned array will tell you the real FS block size. Most UNIX systems have some means of executing a stat() call to get this info, but formats may differ. The Perl call seems to return standard values no matter what.

8K may be applicable to hardware like DEC's Alpha (sorry Compaq, old habits die hard...) or systems running data warehouse databases. But with the proliferation of U2-SCSI and very fast and high capacity disks combined with oodles of fast memory, it won't be long before we can standardise on 8K and stuff the space wastage...

Of course, there are always very specific and odd cases. YMMV. --
Cheers
Nuno Souto
nsouto_at_nsw.bigpond.net.au.nospam
Is there a nospam domain?
http://www.users.bigpond.net.au/the_Den Kenneth C Stahl <BluesSax_at_Unforgettable.com> wrote in message news:37D7A263.BD6072FA_at_Unforgettable.com...

> Actually, it is easy to go wrong with 8K if you are really tight on space.
With
> 7.3 and higher 2K is seldom a good choice because that size usually results in
> some real performance hits. 4K is a good compromise - good performance and
> efficient use of space.
>
Received on Thu Sep 09 1999 - 07:33:17 CDT