Re: Files or RAW-Devices ?

Richard Headrick <rheadric_at_macromedia.com> wrote:
>If after having done all the tuning suggested in the "Oracle manual",
>which included memory tuning, application(sql)tuning, then I would check
>I/O for bottleneck. I'm not sure of the Alpha 4k's architechure, but
>I'd hope for fast/wide differention, or some "wide neck" type drives.
>If I recall coretly, Oracle suggests going to raw devices as a last
>resolt, and even then, perf. gains aren't much more than aprox. 15-30%

-- 
Richard:
What follows will probably start a religious flame war with the UNIX
purists. NOTE: (I learned Oracle on VMS many moons ago)
IMHO only go to raw devices if you have a severly I/O bound machine.
There are many agruments both pro and con for raw devices. The biggest
issue though is usually administrative. Because you're dealing with
devices, the UNIX admin must do it all for you. He or she essentially
becomes part time DBA, and not many of them will like this. 
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