Andrew Cotter wrote:
What are you trying to build?
Analysis and reporting tool with a large MySQL backend. It also serves as a transient backup server for that data. I need MySQL to _fly_ on that RAID array, since the data set is pretty big. I wrote pretty much all software and did the DB schema, so I have true full control over what's running on that machine.
I think I can go with the "throw more hardware (bigger disks) at the problem" approach and use RAID1 instead of RAID5. That should give a boost to the read performance, in theory. I need to do some tests and figure out what works best in this particular case.
I was wrong with the requirements, it's not PCI, it's PCI Express x16
There's not much room in the system, it's a 1U. I think I can fit a full-height card in it, but it must not be too bulky.
It's a fairly new AMD 64bit machine. It will run CentOS 4.4 64bit, possibly version 5 if the project drags its feet long enough and 5 is released soon, and MySQL makes "official" packages for CentOS 5 soon enough and is stable enough. Hm, that's a lot of ifs. :-/