[Beowulf] High Performance for Large Database

[Reuti]

Hi, 

> I'm currently working on a project that will require fast access to 
> data stored in a postgreSQL database server.  I've been told that a 
> Beowulf cluster may help increase performance.  Since I'm not very 
> familar with Beowulf clusters, I was hoping that you might have some 
> advice or information on whether a cluster would increase performance 
> for a PostgreSQL database.  The major tables accessed are around 
> 150-200 million records.  On a stand alone server, it can take several 
> minutes to perform a simple select query. 
> 
> It seems like once we start pricing for servers with 16+ processors 
> and 64+ GB of RAM, the prices sky rocket.  If I can acheive high 
> performance with a cluster, using 15-20 dual processor machines, that 
> would be great. 

what is your configuration now and what disks are you using at this time? Any 
RAID array with SCSI? - Reuti