On Wed, Mar 11, 2009 at 12:55 PM, Joseph L. Casale JCasale@activenetwerx.com wrote:

...

Life is much better now that I'm using -h instead of the manual.

I have a new question about policies

Direct   and DisDskCache makes sense Cached and EnDiskCache makes sense

not so sure about

Direct    and EnDskCache Cached and DisDsk Cache

Do they make sense?

I believe Cached|Direct refers to adapter based caching of the logical (virtual) disk whereas EnDskCache|DisDskCache refers to physical disk cache.

The adapter can hold data in the event of a powerloss with a BBU but I can't see how the disc could.

Hmm. The drive cabinets could have their own UPS. Doesn't have to be very big to keep the power up for long enough for the drive disk caches to get emptied. And I've seen data centers with amaizing multiple layers of redundant power.

I'm thinking production database Secondary servers should be configured for reliability, and production Primary servers should be configure for speed.

The secondary will be extremely paranoid. WT Direct DisDskCache.

Not sure understand the performance benefit/risk trade offs well enough to choose intelligently for the primary. Especially when the application may be making lots of assumptions about what is happening on the lower levels. And may have much more memory available to do its own caching and optimization.

Does the controller really know enough about what's going on in the drive to make effective use of the drives cache to speed things up?

My guess is that I'll start with WB Cached DisDskCache on the primary, and may be surprised where we end up.

And it seems to me that ADRA is almost always the better choice. But I could easily be missing something important.