Re: Informix and RAID?

I recently evaluated a number of RAID 5 controllers supplied by the large RAID vendors. All produced significant performance improvements (> 40%) in an OLAP environment. OLTP was not tested. My advice is, if you've got the time, get somebody to lend you some and try it. Straight forward mirroring using hardware or Informix mirroring there wasn't much to choose between them. The official line from Informix might be use their mirroring, but get the techies of the record and all I spoken to will say use hardware 'cos its a lot less hassle, at least on decent hardware. The final purchase was 60 GByte of RAID 5. Paul Watson WF Software Ltd. Tel. (+44) 121-440-3179 Fax. (+44) 121-440-3806 --> --> Test IT wrote: --> > --> > The folks from Informix told me that running Informix on a box in a --> > RAID configuration is not the best idea. They say that performance --> > drops. Is anyone running Informix 7.11 or > on a RAID box? We're --> > talking less than 100 tps and less than 20GB of data. If you --> > converted from not RAID to RAID, did you see a big performance drop? --> > --> --> If not RAID then yes, mirroring. Received wisdom suggests that both --> hardware and/or UNIX mirroring is preferable to Informix mirroring --> 'though. --> --> Neil --> -Here's the truth, with todays Fast/Wide SCSIs and other intelligent -controllers -you are unlikely to experience any appreciable delays by going to RAID 5, -truth is it depends much more on your hardware configuration than -anything -else. If you have an appropriate number of processors, intelligent disk -controllers and fast drives it is a moot point, either way will perform -well. -As for hardware or UNIX mirroring, if you are running OnLine 6.x or above -it is far better to use Informix mirroring. The reason is because the -engine -is intelligent enough to know that on sequential scans it can -simultaineously -read both the primary and the mirror drive to get the data. -nuff said -Michael Strother -Informix