Running large DB's on FreeBSD

[Mike Jakubik]

Chuck Swiger wrote:
> On Oct 23, 2006, at 4:01 PM, Mike Jakubik wrote:
>>    So, first of all, am i crazy for choosing fbsd+mysql for this 
>> rather than something like Solaris + Oracle? :)
>
> Moderately...it kinda depends on the budget available.  I regard 
> Solaris + Oracle as one of the most reliable combinations for moderate 
> to extreme load, for a system that might well be in operation for five 
> to ten years.  If I was going to do FreeBSD, I might look into 
> Postgres instead of MySQL; well, I might look into something else than 
> MySQL under many circumstances.  I've gotten some pretty good use out 
> of OpenBase, for another choice.
>

I believe the front-end application is MySQL dependent, but what is so 
much better about PostgreSQL? I understand that it has some more 
advanced features, but if they are not used, then what is the advantage? 
(I really like the InnooDB storage in MySQL)

> As for the disk configuration, using RAID-5 is one of the worst 
> possible choices for a database; using multiple RAID-1 mirrors or a 
> RAID-10 config would probably do a lot better in terms of performance 
> and reliability.


Is RAID5 really that bad when a lot of fast disks are used and the 
controller has a decent cache with a BBWC? Thanks for the feedback guys.