Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3653 mails)

[Alex Daniloff <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello SuSE folkz,

We are working on community resume database project for unemployed
folks in our area. It's a voluntary project with no connection to
commercial institutions. 
The whole system should be running on Linux SuSE 8.0 with MySQL DB and
require as low maintenance/administration as possible. 
 
Please read the description of this database and question asked. 

Data safety and redundancy problem is solved by replicating one
database on another (master - slave relationship).
The server simultaneously runs two MySQL databases on different RAID0 
partitions. 
Both databases provide output (select queries) to the users and client
API 
programs through the load balancing interface. 
But user input (insert and update queries) can be done only on master 
database. That propagates them to slave database with adjustable delay
time 
between slave-master reconnection. In case of one RAID0 failure,
remaining 
database becomes the master and continue to handle load until failed
RAID0 
drive is replaced and array is rebuilt. 
This approach eliminates nessesity in tape drive and periodical backup
procedures.

There are still some questions remain: 
What is better to use for data storage DB datafile on top of existing 
filesystem or raw device partition?  
InnoDB ACID compliant tables in MySQL can use both approaches.
But in case with raw device partition InnoDB can perform unbuffered
IO.
As it said on their web site http://www.innodb.com - using raw device 
partition should improve performance on some UNIXes. 
But what is about Linux?
If it's not true for Linux what filesystem is the best to home InnoDB 
datafile?
Does DB performs better when it has smaller or bigger DB datafile or
raw 
partition? 
What is more practical to assign one big e.g. 10GB datafile / raw
partition 
for DB or start with smaller 100M datafile / raw partition and add
additional 
datafile / raw partition when the first one becomes full?

If you have a better idea for safe data storage, 
integrity and operation, please let me know.
Thank you in advance.

Alex