Huge page buffer vs. multiple simultaneous processes

Question

One of our customer has a 35 Gb database with average active connections count about 70-80. Some tables in database have more than 10M records per table.

Now they have bought new server: 4 * 6 Core = 24 Cores CPU, 48 Gb RAM, 2 RAID controllers 256 Mb cache, with 8 SAS 15K HDD on each.

64bit OS.

I'm wondering, what would be a fastest configuration:

1) FB 2.5 SuperServer with huge buffer 8192 * 3500000 pages = 29 Gb

or

2) FB 2.5 Classic with small buffer of 1000 pages.

Maybe some one has tested such case before and will save me days of work :)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

Because there is many processor I would start by Classic.

But try all.

Perhaps soon 2.5 with superclassic can be great for you.

Answer 2

just to dig out the old thread for anyone who may need this.

We use fb classic 2.5 on 75GB db, machine almost the same as described one.

SuperServer was inefficient during tests. Buffers and page size changes only made performance a little bit less miserable.

Currently we use Classic with xinetd, page size = 16384, page buffers = 5000,

Answer 3

SuperServer will use ONLY ONE procesor. Since you have 24 cores your best option is to use Clasic. SuperClasic is not yet ready to scale well in a multi processor enviroment.

Answer 4

Definitely go with one of the 'classic' architectures.
If you're using Firebird 2.5, check out SuperClassic.

Answer 5

I am currently having a client who has similar requirements.

The best solution for that case was to install FirebirdSQL 2.5 SuperClassic and just leaving the default small caching settings, because if you have free memory (RAM), Windows and also Linux do better caching of the database then firebird does. The Caching feature of Firebird is not really fast, so let the OS do it.

Also depending on what backup-software you use - if it creates full backups of the firebird-database often, then you can deactivate forced writes on the databases. (just do it if you know what you are doing and if know what can happes by deactivating the forced writes).