>We are looking at some batch processes involing large databases, including some individual files near the gig range. Mostly these jobs will be run in exclusive mode, using standalone stations.
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>I have been asked to spec these stations.
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>I was thinking of zeon chips, raid five, and 1 Gig of Ram with Perc 3 raid controller and 128 Meg of cache. The question is will this really gain a great deal? Will 1 Gig really give us a significant gain over 512 Meg or 256 Meg. Is raid going to buy us that much gain in I.O. In general can anyone suggest the best configuration for this kind of thing?

When we have to load data here from the Army. I use a Pentium III 450 128MB Memory PC to process the files.

Statistics

3 Tables
frn 15,000 records 12 Indexes
lot 600,000 records a memo field and 20 Indexes including a PHdbase Index
comp 5,500,000 records 3 Indexes

The original tables are zapped, indexes dropped, and everything is recreated.
The File processing will take about 3.5 hours, which is plenty of time to accomplish this as a nightly process.

This biggest processing is the creation of the Phdbase Index on the memo field of the lot table (about 2.5 hours of the 3.5)

Total DBC and table sizes when finished is approx 1.7 GB

Just my 2 cents and my experience with large data files.