This document evaluates the performance of PostgreSQL on different storage systems including Fibre Channel, NFS, local storage, and VSAN using benchmarks like TPC-C and TPC-H. It finds that Fibre Channel through RDM/Passthrough and NFS mounted by the hypervisor performed best on the TPC-C benchmark, while local SSD storage was fastest on the TPC-H benchmark. The results provide insights into which storage systems are best suited for different types of PostgreSQL workloads.

1. A Performance Characterization of
Postgres on Dierent Storage Systems
Dong Ye Syed Faisal Akber
2014-09-18
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2. 1 Storage Systems
2 Benchmarks
3 Results
4 Summary
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3. Storage Systems
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4. Storage Systems
Fibre Channel
NFS
Local Storage
VSAN
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5. Fibre Channel
Block level storage
connected by special

6. bre optic cables
Uses Fabric switches
for connectivity
Top speed today is 16
Gbps
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7. NFS
Network Attached Storage
Easy to setup
Uses normal network (Ethernet) switches
Storage Arrays now support NFS
New features now available to NFS servers via
Arrays
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8. Local Storage
Hard-disk drives and
solid-state drives
Directly attached to
servers
Inexpensive
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9. VSAN
Abstracts and pools
server-side
ash and
disk into shared and
replicated pools
Built within the
hypervisor
Latency is minimized by
leveraging SSD as write
buer and read cache
Non-disruptive scaling
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10. Benchmarks
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11. Benchmarks
Benchmark Description and Con

12. guration
DBT2 OLTP, TPC-C
60 warehouses, clients = # of CPUs,
zero delays
DBT3 OLAP, TPC-H
10 scale factor, 3 streams
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13. Results
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14. Fibre Channel Testbed
Subsystem Speci

15. cations
Storage EMC VNX 5500 RAID-0 LUNs
Hypervisor VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 2
CPU 32
Memory 16 GB
Filesystem EXT4
Operating System Fedora 20 (3.16.2-200)
Database Server PostgreSQL 9.4beta2
postgresql.conf shared buers = 10GB
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16. 13 / 29

17. Fibre Channel { DBT2
Type Result
VMFS 123674.82 NOTPM
RDM/Passthrough 123377.15 NOTPM
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19. Fibre Channel { DBT3
Type Power Throughput Composite
VMFS 47.89 25.57 34.99
RDM/Passthrough 47.02 25.03 34.30
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20. NFS Testbed
Subsystem Speci

21. cations
Storage NetApp FAS6210
Hypervisor VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 2
CPU 8
Memory 16 GB
Filesystem EXT4
Operating System Fedora 20 (3.16.2-200)
Database Server PostgreSQL 9.4beta2
postgresql.conf shared buers = 10GB
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23. NFS { DBT2
Type Result
Mount inside VM 47458.26 NOTPM
Mount by hypervisor 80205.98 NOTPM
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25. NFS { DBT3
Type Power Throughput Composite
Mount inside VM 143.64 119.52 131.02
Mount by hypervisor 86.92 122.73 103.28
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26. Local Storage Testbed
Subsystem Speci

27. cations
RAID Controller HP P410i (1024MB BBWC)
Drive Write Cache Disabled from system BIOS
Disks under Test 1x 15K-rpm SAS, 1x SSD
Hypervisor VMware ESXi 5.5 Update 2
CPU 8
Memory 16 GB
Filesystem EXT4
Operating System Fedora 20 (3.16.2-200)
Database Server PostgreSQL 9.4beta2
postgresql.conf shared buers = 10GB
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29. Local Storage { DBT2
Type Result
SAS 88955.97 NOTPM
SSD 86796.97 NOTPM
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31. Local Storage { DBT3
Type Power Throughput Composite
SAS 49.25 11.92 24.23
SSD 143.63 119.52 131.02
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32. Summary
Storage Systems
Benchmarks
Results
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33. Questions?
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34. References
PostgreSQL http://www.postgresql.org/
Transacton Processing Performance Council (TPC)
http://www.tpc.org/
VMware Virtual SAN (VSAN)
http://www.vmware.com/products/virtual-san
Database Test Suite
http://sourceforge.net/projects/osdldbt/
Virtual Machine File System (VMFS) http://www.
vmware.com/products/vsphere/features/vmfs
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