Jeff,
> Specifically is the performance of
> gigE good enough to allow postgres to perform under load with an NFS
> mounted DATA dir? Are there other problems I haven't thought about? Any
> input would be greatly appreciated.
The big problem with NFS-mounted data is that NFS is designed to be a lossy
protocol; that is, sometimes bits get dropped and you just re-request the
file. This isn't a great idea with databases.
If we were talking SAN, then I don't see any reason why your plan wouldn't
work. However, what type of failure exactly are you guarding against? How
likely is a machine failure if its hard drives are external?
--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco