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(mysql.info.gz) Disk issues

Info Catalog (mysql.info.gz) Optimizing the Server (mysql.info.gz) MySQL Optimization
 
 7.6 Disk Issues
 ===============
 
    * Disk seeks are a big performance bottleneck. This problem becomes
      more apparent when the amount of data starts to grow so large that
      effective caching becomes impossible. For large databases where
      you access data more or less randomly, you can be sure that you
      will need at least one disk seek to read and a couple of disk
      seeks to write things. To minimize this problem, use disks with
      low seek times.
 
    * Increase the number of available disk spindles (and thereby reduce
      the seek overhead) by either symlinking files to different disks
      or striping the disks:
 
     Using symbolic links
           This means that, for `MyISAM' tables, you symlink the index
           file and/or data file from their usual location in the data
           directory to another disk (that may also be striped). This
           makes both the seek and read times better, assuming that the
           disk is not used for other purposes as well.  Symbolic
           links.
 
     Striping
           Striping means that you have many disks and put the first
           block on the first disk, the second block on the second disk,
           and the Nth block on the (N mod number_of_disks) disk, and so
           on. This means if your normal data size is less than the
           stripe size (or perfectly aligned), you will get much better
           performance. Striping is very dependent on the operating
           system and the stripe size, so benchmark your application
           with different stripe sizes.  Custom Benchmarks.
 
           The speed difference for striping is _very_ dependent on the
           parameters. Depending on how you set the striping parameters
           and number of disks, you may get differences measured in
           orders of magnitude.  You have to choose to optimize for
           random or sequential access.
 
 
    * For reliability you may want to use RAID 0+1 (striping plus
      mirroring), but in this case, you will need 2*N drives to hold N
      drives of data. This is probably the best option if you have the
      money for it!  However, you may also have to invest in some
      volume-management software to handle it efficiently.
 
    * A good option is to vary the RAID level according to how critical
      a type of data is. For example, store semi-important data that can
      be regenerated on a RAID 0 disk, but store really important data
      such as host information and logs on a RAID 0+1 or RAID N disk.
      RAID N can be a problem if you have many writes, due to the time
      required to update the parity bits.
 
    * On Linux, you can get much more performance by using `hdparm' to
      configure your disk's interface.  (Up to 100% under load is not
      uncommon.)  The following `hdparm' options should be quite good
      for MySQL, and probably for many other applications:
 
           hdparm -m 16 -d 1
 
      Note that performance and reliability when using this command
      depends on your hardware, so we strongly suggest that you test
      your system thoroughly after using `hdparm'.  Please consult the
      `hdparm' manual page for more information.  If `hdparm' is not
      used wisely, filesystem corruption may result, so back up
      everything before experimenting!
 
    * You can also set the parameters for the filesystem that the
      database uses:
 
      If you don't need to know when files were last accessed (which is
      not really useful on a database server), you can mount your
      filesystems with the `-o noatime' option.  That skips updates to
      the last access time in inodes on the filesystem, which avoids
      some disk seeks.
 
      On many operating systems, you can set a filesystem to be updated
      asynchronously by mounting it with the `-o async' option.  If your
      computer is reasonably stable, this should give you more
      performance without sacrificing too much reliability.  (This flag
      is on by default on Linux.)
 
 

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