FreeBSD 5.4 or 6 for DB server with 9500S-4 ?

[Scott Long]

ray at redshift.com wrote:
> | > My policy is to never be the first kid on the block to test something new -
> | > especially not in production.  FreeBSD 5.4 has been hammered on for a long time
> | > and works really well.  5.4 is an evolution of 5.2.1 and 5.3 - all of which are
> | > very mature and very stable.  I've been running FreeBSD in production since
> | > version 5.2.1 and have been using FreeBSD since 4.9 (previously we used Redhat
> | > linux for our production servers).  Anyway, when I build a machine, here is
> | > exactly what I use:
> | > 
> | 
> | I disagree. First-off, 6.0-RELEASE may be new to the block, but 6.0 has been 
> | kicking it almost as long as 5.4-RELEASE has been out. Most of the experiences 
> | I've heard back from other users are saying 6.0, even RC-1 before -RELEASE 
> | actually runs better than 5.4-RELEASE. Certain key optimizations in 6.0 will 
> | help you out, (eg filesystem changes, SMP support, hardware drivers, etc). 
> | Considering the newer hardware you've chosen (dual core amd64 cpu) - 6.0 is much 
> | better prepared to handle it in the kernel. I've been running 6.0-RC1 on one of 
> | the dual opterons we have here now for a couple of months now - performance is 
> | great and havn't had a moments downtime yet. Seriously, do not discount 6.0 
> | because it's a '.0' release, really it's not. As Ray pointed out, 5.4 was an 
> | evolution of 5.2 - 5.3, etc... what he did not potentially realize, is that 6.0 
> | is of that same evolution. Read the notes as to why the version skipped from 5.4 
> | -> 6.0, and you'll realize that 6.0 was simply a new version number to a release 
> | that would have otherwise been say 5.5, the reason for the skip was because of 
> | the large number of new capbilities and features. And yes, new features generall 
> | can equal new bugs - but if you're not relying upon them and you're doing the 
> | same thing you would with a 5.4 machine, then why sacrafice the added filesystem 
> | performance and hardware support by not running 6.0?
> 
> Can you provide some specific benchmarks you have run comparing 5.4 to 6.0?
> I've heard too many people, too many times, pull stats out of the air regarding
> "the new release".  If you have done some specific testing to show that 5.4 is
> slow than 6.0 - then great.

A benchmark paper is being written right now that shows that for i/o,
FreeBSD 6.0 is universally faster and scales better than 5.4.  Watch for
it to be released fairly soon.

It's fine to doubt conventional wisdom, but you too should back up what
you're saying.  Otherwise, it just amounts to FUD.


Scott