[GENERAL] Prudent practices for PostgreSQL disk configuration?

Hello:

I’m about to upgrade my disk configuration and looking for prudent disk configuration practices for running PostgreSQL 9.3 on RHEL6 in a VMWare environment in a shared hosting facility — physical disk not SSD. This is a write-heavy transactional application. 8 Cpu cores (if it matters)

Things I (think I) know to do:

- Separate database storage, WAL, and standard logs into different partitions.

- 8K disk blocks.

- Use ext4 vs. XFS(?)

- data=writeback,noatime,nodiratime

Any other disk-specific settings you would recommend as a starting point for initial testing? 

Appreciate any thoughts.

—Ray