This could turn into an interesting case study, FeedLounge has switched databases, from MySQL to PostgreSQL. The two main factors they listed were database size (34Gig for MySQL/InnoDB vs. 9.6Gig for PostgreSQL) and restoration time (24+ hours to restore database in MySQL vs. less than 5 hours for PostgreSQL).
I’m surprised to here about the huge difference in database size between MySQL (w/InnoDB) and PostgreSQL. Perhaps the different indexing techniques are responsible for this, I’m not sure. For large databases the ability to cut your storage requirements by more than 1/3 is huge. My gut feeling though is that this would not be the norm though. More testing is definitely in order to make this comparison more meaningful.
The huge difference in database restoration time also strikes me as a bit high. Certainly another area where further tests would be interesting to see if this pattern holds true in general. Obviously being able to restore your database in less than 1/3 the time is a good thing.
The real kicker in all this though is the chance to make use of the additional features found in PostgreSQL (they point this out in their write up). I hope that Alex continues to write about how this transition progresses.
4 replies on “FeedLounge Switches To PostgreSQL”
You forgot to mention the queries running in one third the time on one third the total memory 🙂
We are looking forward to partial indices (only index the unread items, for instance), as another space/time saving measure.
I will write up more as I get some time on dotnot.org
Data may get compressed on disk by PostgreSQL, as explained in: http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.0/static/storage-toast.html
For a database consisting mostly of large text contents, a big shrink in size can probably be achieved by the compression alone.
Feedlounge switched from MySQL to PostgreSQL for good
Feedlounge, the upcoming web-based feeds reader on steroids mentioned a while back that they switched their db-server from MySQL to PostgreSQL and by doing so, they saved alot of space and reduced their restore times dramatically.
Some of the reason…
[…] I’ve already mentioned the announcement of FeedLounge making the move from MySQL to PostgreSQL last month, but the discussion is still on going. If you haven’t yet, go read all of the comments on the announcement. This has to be some of the most productive and level headed (no flames yet) set of blog comments I’ve seen in a long time. For those of you who are coming late to this story let me bring you up to speed: […]