[Info-vax] RX2800 sporadic disk I/O slowdowns

[Arne Vajhøj]

On 10/20/2024 8:28 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 20:13:50 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>> On 10/20/2024 8:06 PM, Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>> On Sun, 20 Oct 2024 19:08:41 -0400, Arne Vajhøj wrote:
>>>> Let me try again.
>>>>
>>>> DB write to plates & system crash => OK but slow
>>>
>>> The DB knows how to make this fast. Remember its cache is faster than
>>> any disk controller.
>>
>> This is where the DB is writing to plates.
>>
>> You can add a fourth scenario:
>>
>> DB write to DB cache & system crash => guaranteed problem with
>> transaction
> 
> Transaction resilience is a standard thing with databases (and journalling
> filesystems) going back decades.

Yes.

But they can't do miracles.

To be sure to come up ok after a system crash it is either write to
plates or write to a cache that will survive the system crash (raid
controller cache with battery backup).

> Some DBMSes don’t even want to work through filesystems, they would rather
> manage the raw storage themselves. This is why POSIX async I/O exists
> <https://manpages.debian.org/7/aio.7.en.html>.

Yes. That is to avoid any dangerous OS/filesystem cache (and possible
for better performance).

Arne