Quad for MySQL?

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Level 1

120 points

Quad for MySQL?

Hi all,

Not sure where the best place to post this is... I currently have a PowerMac MDD Dual 1GHz G4 machine that acts as a MySQL/PHP/Apache server for some custom web driven databases, and also serves some Filemaker 6 databases. It works pretty well, easy to maintain, all is well. It doesn't get much traffic in terms of number of hits, but the web apps are based on some pretty sizable MySQL databases, tables of >1m rows, and some of the more pages based on more complex queries merging several of these tables can take 10-20 seconds. An additional use of the MySQL databases is as an ODBC data source for Spotfire - a Windows data visualisation application - and again these queries are pretty CPU intensive and pull back quite large quantities of data in the order of 100k rows.

I want to upgrade the Dual G4 to a G5 but am wondering whether the Quad G5 is worth the extra money over the Dual? Will MySQL take full advantage of the extra processors? It doesn't appear to on the Dual G4, but can this be done?

Finally, I realise that OSX probably isn't the best choice for a MySQL server, but for me it allows me to administer and maintain and MySQL server and a Filemaker Pro server on the same machine with very little hassle, and lets me get on with my proper job of being a bioinformatician!! I don't wanna learn linux...

Thanks!

Powermac G5 1.6MHz, Mac OS X (10.4)

Posted on Nov 16, 2005 1:55 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 16, 2005 2:44 PM in response to Phil Chapman

Hi Phil,
I certainly don't know the answer to your question but the AnandTech articles that I read recently, AnandTech: No more mysteries: Apple's G5 versus x86, Mac OS X versus Linux and AnandTech: No More Apple Mysteries, Part Two mentioned both MySQL and Apache. Having read the articles, I feel compelled to point out that the "research" seems hardly scientific and there is a lot speculation. The person who wrote the articles sounds rather well informed about kernel architecture but proceeds to make what sound like wild speculations as to the causes of his observations. Nonetheless, the observations do seem to be related to your concerns so I feel I would be remiss if I didn't share the articles with you.
--
Gary
~~~~
It matters not whether you win or lose;
what matters is whether I win or lose.
-- Darrin Weinberg

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Answer 2

Nov 16, 2005 9:40 PM in response to Phil Chapman

Phil,

If you are going to be pushing php/mysql/apache - more CPU is generally better. Even if the apps are not threaded (and the last two certainly are unless compiled explicitly to disable threads) - you will have many more active processes than just the three above.

I'm not sure why you don't think MySQL on Mac is less desirable than other OS/CPU - but I'm quite happy with my mac for a lot of reasons. I have access to Solaris, AIX, Windows, Linux at work but prefer to do my work on Mac whenever possible. (Be it Oracle, MS Office, php/mysql/apache, or general scripting.) Especially when developing and prototyping. Yes, Gary posted a good article that shows that forking threads is a lot slower on G5/Darwin than x86/Linux - but it's not clear how well each was tuned or if your workload really needs to repeatedly spawn and let die threads...

For me - it's a trade off in how much time I have to baby sit a server, how long it takes to set it up, and how much $$ gets dropped one time on the hardware. My labor rate and scarcity of time means that for me - it pays off big time to spend the $$ on as many CPU as possible, make the servers easy to manage, reduce the server count, and buy a lot of RAM (fill the slots with the best price/GB - not necessarily buying the most expensive RAM available). ymmv of course

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Answer 3

Phil Chapman Author

Level 1

120 points

Nov 17, 2005 3:09 AM in response to Michael Bradshaw

Hi,

Thanks to both of you for the replies. I too read the Anandtech article, which was the basis for my 'Mac OSX not being the best choice of server' comment.

Michael, I'm completely in the same boat as you regarding time vs hardware/software cost. The Mac is great for me in that I spend very little time baby sitting the server, and that is why I'd get a mac over any other machine, even if Linux was theoretically faster the time I'd save in quicker performance would more than be taken up by the extra time I'd spend getting the thing to work in the first place. I am lucky enough to have a mac as well as a PC at my Windows centric workplace. I couldn't exist on just the Mac, but it certainly adds to my productivity a great deal. Almost all of my developing/prototyping/playing I do on a Mac - ie the creative stuff!!

So the question really was whether a quad was better than a dual for what I do, and what I've learnt from various discussions is that MySQL seems to multithread in the sense that if you have 2 queries going, they'll use a processor each, but if you only have 1 query it will only use 1 processor, not both. Given that my apps tend to be little used, but when they are used the queries are CPU intensive , it is probably not worth getting the Quad. If the apps were used by many people simultaneously, it would be worth getting the Quad.

Cheers.

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