Re: PostgreSQL on Linux PC vs MacOS X

I noticed you ran PostgreSQL on a G4. What version of OS X were you
running? Is it possible the issues you were facing were fixed with the
newer G5 processor?

Jeff Bohmer wrote:

>
> We use PostgreSQL 7.x on both OS X and Linux.  We used to run OS X in
> production, but due to numerous problems we switched to Linux.  OS X
> was not stable at all, especially under load.  It was also a poor
> performer under load or not.
>
> In my tests, a P3/800, 512MB RAM (100MHz bus) was consistently faster
> at all queries than a G4/1.25GHz, 1.5GB RAM (266MHz bus) for our
> application.  Both machines had single IDE drives.
>
> Another thing to consider is that you can only get ATA drives with
> Apple hardware.  SCSI is not available from Apple, and SCSI devices
> have very poor support under OS X.  If a server with ATA drives goes
> down at the wrong time, you can lose data.  This happened to us with
> our production OS X server last year.  An extended power outage ran
> out the UPS battery, the shutdown script did not stop the server in
> time, and we had to restore from an earlier backup.  For details on
> why this can happen with ATA drives, see this thread:
>
> <http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-general/2003-10/msg01343.php>
>
> Overall, PostgreSQL has been rock solid, very fast, and headache-free
> on Linux.  A complete change from OS X.  Our main production
> PostgreSQL server has been up for 234 days now.  In that period, the
> only downtime for PostgreSQL has been for planned upgrades.
>
> As a side note, we've also had major problems running multi-threaded
> servers on OS X which run great (stable and much, much faster) on Linux.
>
> - Jeff
>
>
>
>> We currently are running a data intensive web service on a Mac using
>> 4D. The developers of our site are looking at converting this web
>> service to PostgreSQL. We will have a backup of our three production
>> servers at our location. The developers are recommending that I
>> purchase a 2GHz Dual Processor G5 with between 2GB and 4 GB RAM. They
>> say that this configuration would be able to easily run a copy of all
>> three production servers. My question is: has anybody had any
>> experience comparing the performance of PostgreSQL on a G5 Mac versus
>> a PC running Linux? Can anyone tell me if there are any benefits of
>> running PostgreSQL on one platform over the other. Anything that can
>> help me make the best decision would be appreciated.
>>
>> --
>> James Strickland - MCP
>> IT Manager
>> American Roamer
>> 901-377-8585
>> http://www.americanroamer.com
>>
>>
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>
>
>

--
James Strickland - MCP
IT Manager
American Roamer
901-377-8585
http://www.americanroamer.com