Subject Re: [firebird-support] Re: how can the creation of fb_sort files be avoided? 2.2 GB of fb_sort files
Author Dalton Calford
Post date 2018-08-07T13:20:34Z
Hi James,

I have a couple of questions about your configuration before I give any suggestions.
You specify you are wanting to get rid of sort files.   Sort files are a tool the engine uses to hold information before sending them to the user.    Depending upon your queries, sort files are required -especially if you use order by clauses (sort plans).

I am assuming that the real reason you are asking the question is due to performance issues.

So the question you should be asking is, how do I make my sorts/queries faster.
In regards to your hardware you specified the following
Windows 2008 R2 Server (Virtual Machine)
Running Firebird 2.5.8.27089 in SuperClassic Mode
65,53 GB Ram available
Database Size 58,96 GB
8 CPU Cores
But, the big questions are, what hard drives are installed in the server, what are their performance specs, what are the data channels that those drives are connected to and how many, what raid configuration(if any) is setup as well as where your OS is installed, where the swap file is installed, where the temp directories (for the firebird user, system user and the firebird conf file states) are pointing, where the database files are sitting and what other applications/processes may be using or contesting drive and cpu resources.

The next series of questions are, how big a tuple are you requesting, how big is your result set, how often do you run the query, is your data normalised and if so, to what level, how your indexes are setup along with how you optimised your queries.

Firebird can run in high volume, realtime environments as long as you understand the bottlenecks that can affect your system.

best regards

Dalton


On Tue, 7 Aug 2018 at 03:38, bieten2004@... [firebird-support] <firebird-support@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
 

Hi everyone,

it would be great if I where to receive an answer to this question :-)
I am unsure whether the issue is so easy to answer that everyone thinks it is self explanatory
or that it is a rather challenging question which requires lots of in-depth Fire Bird knowledge ^^

Best Regards,
James



---In firebird-support@yahoogroups.com, <bieten2004@...> wrote :

Hallo Everyone!

Although I spend a lot of time reading about performance tuning and optimizing Firebird according to the guides that the Firebird Team has published over the years, I could not figure out how to stop Firebird from creating about 2.2 GB of fb_sort files in the C:\Windows\Temp directory.

As described in other discussions the files disappear when the database is not being used intensively but I would not like to see them created in the first place.

As far as I see it, it is disadvantageous, when temp-files are created on the slow hard disk instead of keeping them in the fast RAM. I suspect that this also applies to Firebird.

You guys will very probably require system information in order to help:
Windows 2008 R2 Server (Virtual Machine)
Running Firebird 2.5.8.27089 in SuperClassic Mode
65,53 GB Ram available
Database Size 58,96 GB
8 CPU Cores


What do I have to do in order to stop the creation of fb_sort files?
My concern is that Firebird performance is suffering because of this.
I could of course also be mistaken and fb_sort-Files do not have a (negative) influence on performance.
If this were true, then I would be relieved :-)

Thanks a lot for your competent advice in advance and best Regards,
James