Re: To RAID or not to RAID (...or how to RAID)

Rick Denoire <100.17706_at_germanynet.de> wrote in news:gecvnukn3tp03pkted9c0rqgln1vokg25i_at_4ax.com:

> SELECT greeting_name FROM greetings
> WHERE greeting_name="HELLO";
>
> I am planning to put an Oracle DB (8.1.7, Solaris 2.7) on a RAID
> System from Dell with 10 HDs in a RAID 1/0 configuration.
>
> My question is, should I make one logical device out of all disks
> and just put all tablespaces there? Or should I make groups of
> disks holding different kind of data?

SELECT response_name FROM greetings
 WHERE response_name="HOWDY";

Rick,

This is a very interesting problem. Here's how I'd attack the problem because I think if you have the cycles, you might want to setup a (mini-)benchmark to test all the various activities against your production site and config accordingly. As a base point, I'd go and look at www.tpc.org and pick one of the TPC-C or TPC-H (whichever seems to mirror your environment closests ... -C => OLTP; -H => DSS/Reporting) and take a look at the benchmark's FDR - full disclosure report.

See how the vendor has laid out the RAID devices.

From a previous post, many months ago, where I was shown that I was _wrong_, I recall that on one of the TPC-C's, everything was laid out on all the RAID devices.

btw, you'll also want to ensure you have enough bandwidth configured for maintenance as well: backups, etc. Sometimes folks forget that.

I realize that I'm not giving you the 'magic' formula but it's because I personally don't believe there is one. You can start with a baseline and that's why I suggest the TPC's.

Thx!

-- 
Pablo Sanchez, High-Performance Database Engineering
http://www.hpdbe.com