Despite some people's thoughts that a powerfail test is of little use, I
going to spend some time doing one anyway because I think Tom's
arguments for it are valid. I have lashed together the attached test
program (the important bits are the setup, run and check functions) for
review before I actually do anything next week. Comments, suggestions
etc are welcome, though I don't have the time to write anything too
complex, but do want to perform a valid test first time round if
possible.

I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
reiserfs (which is preferred?).

The number of runs will be dictated by my workload next week, but I'd
like to do at least 20 powerfails on each OS.

Regards, Dave.
Fri, 31 Jan 2003 20:36:44 -0000
"Dave Page" <dpage@vale-housing.co.uk>
Win32 port powerfail testing
Dave Page kirjutas R, 31.01.2003 kell 22:36:
> Despite some people's thoughts that a powerfail test is of little use, I
> going to spend some time doing one anyway because I think Tom's
> arguments for it are valid. I have lashed together the attached test
> program (the important bits are the setup, run and check functions) for
> review before I actually do anything next week. Comments, suggestions
> etc are welcome, though I don't have the time to write anything too
> complex, but do want to perform a valid test first time round if
> possible.
> 
> I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
> RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
> an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
> reiserfs (which is preferred?).

I think that ext3 should be more reliable, or at least more mainstream -
I have had bad experience with raiserfs not too long ago - a crash
(similar to pull-the-plug) zeroed out completely unrelated files (files
not recently written to, just read). As I don't use Slackware anymore
(though I started usin linux on it in the dark ages before 1.0 kernel),
I don't know if the issues are fixed there.

> The number of runs will be dictated by my workload next week, but I'd
> like to do at least 20 powerfails on each OS.

Don't post if you happen to get better results for win32 ;)

I have a worried lung-doctor (aka pulmonologist)  friend who did some
research/statistics on influence of smoking and he is desperate as his
methodologically completely scientific studies ended up showing that
smoking is healthy and not smoking is not ;), so he seems unable to
publish any of his results in any respectable outlet ;(

-- 
Hannu Krosing <hannu@tm.ee>

01 Feb 2003 01:12:11 +0200
Hannu Krosing <hannu@tm.ee>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing
On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 14:36, Dave Page wrote:
> 
> I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
> RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
> an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
> reiserfs (which is preferred?).
> 

Please go with XFS or ext3.  There are a number of blessed and horror
stories which still float around about reiserfs (recent and old; even
though I've never lost data with it -- using it now even).

Might be worth testing FAT32 on NT as well.  Even if we don't advocate
it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of what one
might reasonably expect from it.  I'm betting there are people just
waiting to run with FAT32 in the Win32 world.  ;)


Regards,

-- 
Greg Copeland <greg@copelandconsulting.net>
Copeland Computer Consulting


01 Feb 2003 00:27:31 -0600
Greg Copeland <greg@CopelandConsulting.Net>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing
On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:27:31AM -0600, Greg Copeland wrote:
> On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 14:36, Dave Page wrote:
> > 
> > I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
> > RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
> > an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
> > reiserfs (which is preferred?).
> > 
> 
> Please go with XFS or ext3.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> stories which still float around about reiserfs (recent and old; even
> though I've never lost data with it -- using it now even).
> 
> Might be worth testing FAT32 on NT as well.  Even if we don't advocate
> it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of what one
> might reasonably expect from it.  I'm betting there are people just
> waiting to run with FAT32 in the Win32 world.  ;)

	You'd better go with NTFS.  There are a number of blessed and horror
stories which still float around about FAT32 (recent and old; even though
I've never lost data with it -- using it now even now.

	Might be worth testing reiserfs on Linux as well.  Even if we don't
advocate it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of
what one my reasonbly expect from it.  I'm better there are people
just waiting to run with reiserfs in the Linux world.  ;)

Regards, and tongue firmly in cheek,

-- 
Adam Haberlach         | "If I have hacked deeper than them, it is
adam@mediariffic.com   |  because I stand in their trenches."
http://mediariffic.com |    -- Graham Nelson 

Fri, 31 Jan 2003 22:34:04 -0800
Adam Haberlach <adam@newsnipple.com>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing
Try it with FreeBSD's UFS and FreeBSD 5.0's new UFS2 filesystems perhaps -
or I could!

Chris

On 1 Feb 2003, Greg Copeland wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 14:36, Dave Page wrote:
> >
> > I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
> > RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
> > an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
> > reiserfs (which is preferred?).
> >
>
> Please go with XFS or ext3.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> stories which still float around about reiserfs (recent and old; even
> though I've never lost data with it -- using it now even).
>
> Might be worth testing FAT32 on NT as well.  Even if we don't advocate
> it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of what one
> might reasonably expect from it.  I'm betting there are people just
> waiting to run with FAT32 in the Win32 world.  ;)
>
>
> Regards,
>
> --
> Greg Copeland <greg@copelandconsulting.net>
> Copeland Computer Consulting
>
>
> ---------------------------(end of broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 2: you can get off all lists at once with the unregister command
>     (send "unregister YourEmailAddressHere" to majordomo@postgresql.org)
>


Sat, 1 Feb 2003 20:40:09 +0800 (WST)
Christopher Kings-Lynne <chriskl@familyhealth.com.au>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing
On Sat, 2003-02-01 at 00:34, Adam Haberlach wrote:
> On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:27:31AM -0600, Greg Copeland wrote:
> > On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 14:36, Dave Page wrote:
> > > 
> > > I intend to run the tests on a Dual PIII 1GHz box, with 1Gb of Non-ECC
> > > RAM and a 20Gb (iirc) IDE disk. I will run on Windows 2000 Server with
> > > an NTFS filesystem, and again on Slackware Linux 8 with either ext3 or
> > > reiserfs (which is preferred?).
> > > 
> > 
> > Please go with XFS or ext3.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> > stories which still float around about reiserfs (recent and old; even
> > though I've never lost data with it -- using it now even).
> > 
> > Might be worth testing FAT32 on NT as well.  Even if we don't advocate
> > it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of what one
> > might reasonably expect from it.  I'm betting there are people just
> > waiting to run with FAT32 in the Win32 world.  ;)
> 
> 	You'd better go with NTFS.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> stories which still float around about FAT32 (recent and old; even though
> I've never lost data with it -- using it now even now.
> 
> 	Might be worth testing reiserfs on Linux as well.  Even if we don't
> advocate it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of
> what one my reasonably expect from it.  I'm better there are people
> just waiting to run with reiserfs in the Linux world.  ;)
> 
> Regards, and tongue firmly in cheek,


Touche!  :P

While I understand and even appreciate the humor value, I do believe the
picture is slightly different than your "analysis".  If we make
something that runs on Win32 platforms, might it also run on Win98,
WinME, etc.?  Let's face the facts that should it also run on these
platforms, it's probably only a matter of time before someone has it
running on FAT32 (even possible on NT, etc).  In other words, I'm fully
expecting the lowest common denominator of MySQL user to be looking at
PostgreSQL on Win32.  Which potentially means lots of FAT32 use.  And
yes, even for a "production" environment.  Ack!  Double-ack!

Also, Dave was asking for feedback between reiserfs and ext3.  I offered
XFS and ext3 as candidates.  I personally believe that ext3 and XFS are
going to be the more common (in that order) of journaled FS for DB Linux
users.  Besides, aside from any bugs in reiserfs, testing results for
ext3 or XFS should probably coincide with reasonable expectations for
reiserfs as well.

As I consider FAT32 to be much more fragile than ext2 (having had
seriously horrendous corruption and repaired/recovered from it on ext2),
the results may prove interesting.  Which is to say, should testing
prove absolutely horrible results, proper disclaimers and warnings
should be made readily available to avoid its use.  Which is probably
not a bad idea to begin with.  ;)  Nonetheless, it's an unknown right
now in my mind.  Hopefully some testing my reveal what reasonable
expectations we should hold so that we can knowingly advise accordingly.


Regards,


-- 
Greg Copeland <greg@copelandconsulting.net>
Copeland Computer Consulting


01 Feb 2003 11:30:17 -0600
Greg Copeland <greg@CopelandConsulting.Net>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing
On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 11:30:17AM -0600, Greg Copeland wrote:
> On Sat, 2003-02-01 at 00:34, Adam Haberlach wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 01, 2003 at 12:27:31AM -0600, Greg Copeland wrote:
> > > On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 14:36, Dave Page wrote:

> > > Please go with XFS or ext3.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> > > stories which still float around about reiserfs (recent and old; even
> > > though I've never lost data with it -- using it now even).
> > > 
> > > Might be worth testing FAT32 on NT as well.  Even if we don't advocate
> > > it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of what one
> > > might reasonably expect from it.  I'm betting there are people just
> > > waiting to run with FAT32 in the Win32 world.  ;)
> > 
> > 	You'd better go with NTFS.  There are a number of blessed and horror
> > stories which still float around about FAT32 (recent and old; even though
> > I've never lost data with it -- using it now even now.
> > 
> > 	Might be worth testing reiserfs on Linux as well.  Even if we don't
> > advocate it's use, it may not hurt to at least get an understanding of
> > what one my reasonably expect from it.  I'm better there are people
> > just waiting to run with reiserfs in the Linux world.  ;)
> > 
> > Regards, and tongue firmly in cheek,
> 
> Touche!  :P
> 
> While I understand and even appreciate the humor value, I do believe the
> picture is slightly different than your "analysis".  If we make
> something that runs on Win32 platforms, might it also run on Win98,
> WinME, etc.?  Let's face the facts that should it also run on these
> platforms, it's probably only a matter of time before someone has it
> running on FAT32 (even possible on NT, etc).  In other words, I'm fully
> expecting the lowest common denominator of MySQL user to be looking at
> PostgreSQL on Win32.  Which potentially means lots of FAT32 use.  And
> yes, even for a "production" environment.  Ack!  Double-ack!

	I was just trying to point out the inherent elitist bias in saying
that Microsoft's old filesystem should be tested, even though it's use
is discouraged, while one of Linux's new filesystems shouldn't, even
though it's use is popular.  There's a huge double standard here,
caused by fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

	I'm just personally pretty tired of this anti-Microsoft bias.  I'm
going to be frank and say that many of the people here sound like a bunch
of elitist assholes who refuse to sully themselves with a well-used,
well-supported, and lately very useful operating system.  For those of
you who know my history (or care), I've supported Solaris, Linux, Win NT
from 3.51 on up, and worked at one of the non-Linux "anti-Microsoft"
companies for 4 years.  I worked in a testlab where we tested and broke
NT (usually caused by driver failures), SCO Unix (who KNOWs what made
it panic), and Netware (effectively bulletproof).

	The fact is, the Win32 platform is mature.  It is a modern operating
system, and just because they don't do some things the way that the
old guard Unix greybeards to doesn't necessarily make it inferior.

	What's more, all of this testing of filesystems is pretty moot at
some point.  So far, I've lost more data and time due to a bad locking
procedure during vacuums (forcing a lot of quiet in-field upgrades from
7.2.2 to 7.2.3) then I ever expect to lose due to power failure.  If we
could spend a little more time testing the actual product and a little
less time worrying about the underlying operating system, I'd be pretty
happy.


...and I'm done discussing the issue for now, since there's not much
more for me to say...

-- 
Adam Haberlach         | "If I have hacked deeper than them, it is
adam@mediariffic.com   |  because I stand in their trenches."
http://mediariffic.com |    -- Graham Nelson 

Sat, 1 Feb 2003 09:43:28 -0800
Adam Haberlach <adam@newsnipple.com>
Re: Win32 port powerfail testing