Re: HP vs Informix mirroring
Here at AG we extensively use RAID 5 ( NCA, SEEK, and CMD controllers ) -- and have cache on them ranging from 32MB to 256MB ( on the newer CMD units ), with the following mix of OS to Informix HP 9.X V5.01 - V5.05 HP10.X V7.13 - V7.23.UC4 AIX 3.2.5 V5.00 - V5.01 Yes, I shudder and cringe when I look at this list and think how vulnerable I am with some of those releases (different subject though... ;^) I would have to say that the impacts of using RAID 5, are negligible compared to the other battles I'm fighting regarding query structure, index construction, program design, (noticing a theme here). I am finally getting some developers to repeat my mantra back to me without prompting: "how are you going after the data" After proper indexing - 1 record deletes that were taking 20 minutes were subsecond... The biggest improvements for performance here were: query analysis, RAID cache, and lastly multiple paths. One last comment: Raid 5 has saved us a few times. Your mileage may vary! Just my $.02 worth... apsnet@ix.netcom.com on 03/18/98 06:18:02 AM Please respond to apsnet@ix.netcom.com To: informix-list@iiug.org cc: (bcc: Eric Melillo/AGInc) Subject: Re: HP vs Informix mirroring In article <350EEDF9.187C@po1.cobe.com>, Ed Bidinotto <eb06709@po1.cobe.com> wrote: >We are running HP-UX 10.20 with Informix 7.23UC1 and are looking at >either working with Raid 5 or going with scsi mirroring. We have seen >great performance with raid 0+1 on another server and have not had great >results with raid 5 so here's my question to the masses. > >Does anyone have any stats on performance or even recommendations as to >which one of the above is better? I've always heard that if you are >going to be mirroring - then go with Informix however I think that >person just said that because they didn't know anything about HPUX >mirroring. I don't know the pros and cons, hopefully someone does. > >All ideas, recommendations, suggestions are welcome. > >Tks in advance >Ed > >edbid @ cobe.com Do not use Raid 5. I had a HP model 20 array maxed out with cache, with dual controllers, yada yada yada, and performace was so poor many programs simply never finished. On a D370 system, dual PA7200 processor, 512 Meg RAM with 40 rather slow SCSI single ended drives, I had a billing query than completed in about 4 hours. Substituting the array for the drives, no matter how we configured the damn thing, the query never completed (never meaning not in 3 days, anyway.) Ray Garrison