FreeBSD hardware solution for a database server

[Uzi Klein]

jmc wrote:
> For the best database-write performance on the DL380G4, make sure you
> have the Battery-Backed Write Cache (BBWC) option.

Never heard of it. I'd take it as a hardware setup in BIOS?
(The server is in co-location, i have no physical access to it but i can 
explain ISP sys-admin what to do if needed)

> The more spindles you have, the better.  Are you using all 6 drive
> bays in the 380?  Make sure they're all Ultra320 drives.  15K will
> give the best performance, but the 10K drives aren't too shabby. 
> RAID0 will give the best performance, but it's not redundant.  Next is
> RAID1, then RAID5 or ADG.

I have 5 drives 36 GB Ultra320 15K:

2 mirrored drives mounted as /
3 RAID 5 drives mounted as /var

www# df -h
Filesystem     Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/da0s1a     33G    4.7G     26G    16%    /
devfs          1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/da1s1d     62G    9.5G     47G    17%    /var

> You might also try a DL385 (dual socket Opteron) or DL585 (quad socket
> Opteron) which will give you either 4 or 8 procs (if they are dual
> core).

Are you suggesting AMD based boxes outperforms Intel based machines?
That's what I'm really interested in...

I know it's time for a dedicated fast database server.
If i optimized my database and hardware settings, i could gain months, 
not more.
The question is upgrade to what (Assuming my DL380 isn't enough)


Thanks,
Uzi

P.S - Please CC me the replies as I'm not subscribed.