The biggest thing we did to speed up our linux servers was to separate
the /tmp directory from the partition with the databases. We played
around with a RAM disk, but found that there was no speed improvement
for our tests. It seemed like linux would automatically use all
available RAM and give us the same results. Also, I don't think
Firebird can use a raw partition, only database software that thinks it
can handle filesystem io better is supposed to use it (just what I read
somewhere).

We ended up splitting our hot-swap backplane and putting the OS and /tmp
partitions on a RAID-1 setup on 1 SCSI channel and then database
partition on the other SCSI channel with 3 or more disks in RAID-5. So
far that keeps up with our users... We did not change any parameters in
the config files.

-steve

Jan Bakuwel wrote:

> Hi,
>
> Apologies if I'm asking a question that has been asked before but I
> couldn't locate the answer in the archives...
>
> I'm studying ways to improve the performance of a large Firebird
> database (>15GB) and was wondering what I can do. I've increased the
> memory allocation (see Firebird) parameters below) but it seems a single
> classic Firebird server instance/process won't allocate more than 1GB of
> memory...
>
> Would it make sense to use a raw disc device (ie. for instance
> /dev/sda11) instead of a filing system on that partition? A book about
> Linux tuning suggests to use "raw" devices, however it seems raw devices
> have become obsolete in the 2.6 series kernels: according to the
> documentation it would suffice to open the file /dev/sda11 with the
> O_DIRECT flag. But since I have no way telling Firebird to open
> /dev/sda11 with that flag...
>
> Usually there's only 1 user running queries...
>
> Any ideas/suggestions are welcome!
>
> thanks,
> Jan
>
> Relevant Firebird parameters in /etc/firebird2/firebird.conf
>
> DefaultDbCachePages = 819200
> SortMemBlockSize = 1073741824
> SortMemUpperLimit = 4294967296
>
> OS: Linux Debian Sarge, kernel 2.6.15.1
> RAM: 8GB
> HD: Hardware RAID5 SATA, 4 discs
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Visit http://firebird.sourceforge.net and click the Resources item
> on the main (top) menu. Try Knowledgebase and FAQ links !
>
> Also search the knowledgebases at http://www.ibphoenix.com
>
> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>