Re: RAID 1/0 vs. RAID 5

I don't know about the Compaq RAID controller so I cannot say for sure, however if it is a "smart" controller with read/write caching RAID 5 should outperform RAID 1/0, because it automatically does parallel reads AND writes are not adversely affected. On the otherhand your database is small enough that it probably wont be much of an issue one way or the other unless your number of relations (tables) is very small or your queries are very complex. Proper database design and indexing should handle most of your problems. Larry Benoit <lbenoit@javanet.com> wrote: >I am about to configure a new Compaq Proliant 3000 with the Compaq 2SL >SCSI RAID controller, 128 MB memory, four 4.1 GB UW (10K spindles) >drives, SCO Openserver 5.0.4 and Informix Online 5.10 with I-Star. We >have about 16 users running Win95 with NewEra 2.2. > >I plan to configure the four hard drives into two logical stripped >drives and mirror the logical drives -- RAID 1/0. This is the >configuration for our current Compaq ProSignia 500/SCO Openserver 3.0 >running Informix Online 5.03 and thankfully has been 100% reliable for 3 >plus years. > >Disk capacity is not an issue -- our database will not exceed 1GB -- >performance and reliability are my primary concern. I will be using raw >devices and 64MB of shared memory will be allocated to the database >engine. > >I am inclined to stick with RAID 1/0, but would appreciate any comments >regarding performance and reliability of RAID 1/0 versus RAID 5, >especially for complex queries. Mike South Producer/Director "Mike South's Peaches & Cream" "Mike South's Georgia Peaches" http://www.mike-south.com Winner 1997 AVN Best Amateur Video Winner 1998 AVN Best Amateur Video Winner 1996 Rocky Mountain Oyster Readers Poll Best Pro-Am Series