Re: Oracle Raw Partitions

Alexey M. Reshetov wrote in message <6s254k$t1s$1_at_home.kpbank.ru>...
>A. Gordon (aog_at_capgroup.com) wrote:
>: Has anyone had experience with Oracle raw partitions? If so, I'd
>: appreciate any reactions to them. In particular, I'd like to know:
>
>: 1. Do they provide any performance gain over file systems?
>
>I suppose it depends from type of file system. In my experiments
>I've got speed on file system greater than on raw partitions.

Try something VERY disk intensive with multiple concurrent users, and try reallocating the memory you've gained with raw disks to sort areas, sort buffers, db block buffers, etc., and then come back and tell us how 'slow' raw partitions are...
>
>: 2. Are they really harder to manage?
>
>Yes. Very hardly to make backup and then restore raw partition. And
>sometimes hardly to determine disk I/O parameters.

No they are not, if you KNOW what you are doing. You can dd to disk, or direct to tape. And with raw partitions you don't waste time constantly creating filesystems that Oracle neither wants or needs. And you can migrate raw paritions between disks easily without having to change anything at the Oracle level (i.e., you don't have to rename datafiles, etc. You could argue that the use of 'links' would achieve the same effect with filesystems, though.)

Most decent backup products WILL handle raw partitions. Just make sure before you buy.

Like I said, if you are good with UNIX, then there is no reason not to use raw partitions. In conversations I've had with EMC, Oracle, Sybase and IBM, all came out in favour of raw partitions for 'production' databases. Some installations REQUIRE them - Sybase and Oracle Parallel Server.

Just my take.

MotoX.

>
>: I've read some literature already; however,
>: personal experiences would be greatly appreciated!
>
>Regards!
>____________________________________________________
>Alexey Reshetov
>real_at_kpbank.ru
>
Received on Thu Aug 27 1998 - 03:24:56 CDT