Paul wrote:
<<
I've discovered Firebird a couple of months ago. And I consider it
for switching from MS-SQL Server, because of the price. And I ask you
to tell me about your experience implementing Firebird, regarding the
performance.
My app is designed for a small corporate intranet (most 5 users
logged in simontaneously), the network is running W98 / W2K prof
clients and TCP/IP. Firebird will be installed as service on an W2K
Professional machine (planned as Pentium IV / 1.8G, 256MB, RAID HDD
40MB). Even if it sounds not bad, I'm concerned about the following:
at some time it could happen that all clients will connect to an
table, wanting to "pump" thousends of records, some of them out
(SELECT FROM) and some of them in (INSERT TO). Will Firebird do it?
Will it be reliable?
Any advice you can give me? Perhaps also encouraging me, telling me
from your experience Firebird doing more than that? :-)

>>

P IV 1.8GHz 256MB should be fine (P III or Xeon may be better), 256 is ok
but when several databases are open some more RAM would be nice. I'm not
sure what "RAID HDD 40MB" means - 40GB disk? or 40MB database? A fast HDD
is always good, and you cannot have to much of it :-)

It has generally been held that Firebird is faster on inserts and slower on
selects (compared to MS sql server), but Firebird (Fb1.5) has seen some
substantial improvements on the selects. It is generally difficult (read
"impossible") to be specific on performance without knowing more about the
apps and usage pattern. What I really love about Fb is the architecture
(MGA) - and the community on these NGs.
My databases are small-to-medium (around 1GB), with around 20 users on
them. HW is approx. 900MHz Xeon and fast disks (mirrored 15000rpm SCSI) on
a Dell PE4400, IIRC (running W2k server). Mostly non-intensive interavtive
use, but also periodically updating 100.000 records or more, or exporting a
million records with hardly perceptible impact for other users. I also
have a 800MB database on an old 266MHz PIII (WinNT4 WS), but this one is
scheduled for moving to faster harware. All apps developed with Delphi+IBO.
Maybe this can give you some ansers.


--
Aage J.