Re: Compared MS SQL 2000 to Postgresql 9.0 on Windows

So, I am back on this topic again.
I have a related question, but this might be the correct thread (and
please let me know that).  The boss is pressing the issue because of the
cost of MSSQL.

What kind of performance can I expect out of Postgres compare to MSSQL?
Let's assume that Postgres is running on Cent OS x64 and MSSQL is running
on Windows 2008 x64, both are on identical hardware running RAID 5 (for
data redundancy/security), SAS drives 15k RPM, dual XEON Quad core CPUs,
24 GB of RAM.  I have searched around and I do not see anyone ever really
compare the two in terms of performance.  I have learned from this thread
that Postgres needs a lot of configuration to perform the best.

We provide the MLS service to our members.  Our data goes back to 1997 and
nothing is ever deleted.  Here is a general overview of our current MSSQL
setup.  We have over 10GB of data in a couple of tables (no pictures are
stored in SQL server).  Our searches do a lot of joins to combine data to
display a listing, history, comparables, etc.  We probably do 3 or 4 reads
for every write in the database.

Any comparisons in terms of performance would be great.  If not, how can I
quickly truly compare the two systems myself without coding everything to
work for both?  Thoughts? Opinions?

Thanks,
Tom Polak
Rockford Area Association of Realtors
815-395-6776 x203

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-----Original Message-----
From: Pierre C [mailto:lists@peufeu.com]
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 5:36 PM
To: pgsql-performance@postgresql.org; Tom Polak
Subject: Re: [PERFORM] Compared MS SQL 2000 to Postgresql 9.0 on Windows

> The hardware it
> is running on is fairly good, dual Xeon CPUs, 4 GB of RAM, Raid 5.

For a database you'd want to consider replacing the RAID1 with a RAID1 (or

RAID10). RAID5 is slow for small random updates, which are common in
databases. Since you probably have enough harddisks anyway, this won't
cost you. Linux or freebsd would also be better choices for postgres
rather than windows.

Also, as said, your issue looks very much like a problem in the way your
application communicates with postgres : if it takes postgres 5 ms to
process the query and your application gets the result 8 seconds later,
there is a problem. Note that SQL Server probably takes just a few ms for

such a simple query, too, so your not really benchmarking SQL server
either.