Performance MySQL Linux vs. Windows

[Keith Sauvant]

Hi experts,

we are benchmarking MySQL with PHP client on different operating
systems. We use a set of small db operations (selects, updates, inserts)
and measure the number of operations being actioned per second.

The results are astonishing. Linux outperforms Windows on the same
hardware significantly:

Linux: 3.500 operations/s
Windows: 2.100 operations/s

Spec. details:

Linux: Debian 2.6.24 64bit
Windows: 2008R2 64bit
Hardware: 2x Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5405 @ 2.00GHz, 12 GB RAM,
Hardware-Raid 1, SATA 750GB
PHP 5.2.10
MySQL 5.1.41/64

Is that a "normal" OS effect or would you assume an installation issue?

Best regards
Keith

[Jerry Stuckle]

Insufficient information. Have you tuned both systems for maximum
performance?

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry Stuckle
JDS Computer Training Corp.
jstu...@attglobal.net
==================

[Keith Sauvant]

Am 12.03.2010 12:51, schrieb Jerry Stuckle:
> Insufficient information. Have you tuned both systems for maximum
> performance?

Hmmm. Some more information about the MySQL configuration: Parameters as
recommended by MySQL for servers mostly hosting mysql. All tables MyISAM.

What exactly would you need to know in addition?

Best regards
Keith

[Jerry Stuckle]

You need to learn how to tune MySQL for best performance for your
installation. Every one is different. And default or recommended
values are a good place to start. But they are only the start, not the end.

[Keith Sauvant]

> You need to learn how to tune MySQL for best performance for your
> installation. Every one is different. And default or recommended
> values are a good place to start. But they are only the start, not
> the end.

You are absolutely right.

But I am not asking for how to fine tune the last 5 percent out of it. I
am asking why and if a Windows installation of MySQL normally is >30%
slower than a Linux installation on the same box.

Anyone?

Best regards
Keith

[Erick T. Barkhuis]

Keith Sauvant:

>Linux: 3.500 operations/s
>Windows: 2.100 operations/s

>Is that a "normal" OS effect or would you assume an installation
>issue?

Hi Keith,
I have no comparison data, so all I could try to do is point out, that
this question has been asked a lot in several forums already, so you
may want to do a search on "mysql performance linux windows" or similar.
Of course, you'll see plenty of vague opinions and bashing, but I
believe there are a few useful replies out there:

http://forums.mysql.com/read.php?24,215528,228017#msg-228017
http://dev.mysql.com/tech-resources/articles/mysql_on_windows.html

--
Erick

[Keith Sauvant]

Hi Erick,

thank you for the links. I searched some hours before asking here and
came across both documents. But as you said, information is all vague
unfortunately. My hope is to find somebody here with practical
experience comparing the operating platforms.

Best regards
Keith

[Axel Schwenke]

Keith Sauvant <oecher7...@spamgourmet.com> wrote:
>
> we are benchmarking MySQL with PHP client on different operating
> systems. We use a set of small db operations (selects, updates, inserts)
> and measure the number of operations being actioned per second.
>
> The results are astonishing. Linux outperforms Windows on the same
> hardware significantly:
>
> Linux: 3.500 operations/s
> Windows: 2.100 operations/s
>

> Is that a "normal" OS effect or would you assume an installation issue?

You benchmark a lot of different things in such a test:

- interprocess communication
- file systems
- scheduler
- compiler + system libs quality

Windows is known for i.e. slow NTFS. And all IPC sucks, that is
why virtually all Windoze software is multithreaded instead of
multiprocessed.

Finally: UNIX (used to be Solaris, nowadays Linux) is the primary
development platform for MySQL developers. No wonder MySQL performs
better there. Oh and don't miss the MySQL manual. It has a Win/*NIX
comparison page too.

XL

[R C Nesbit]

Keith Sauvant spoke:

> thank you for the links. I searched some hours before asking here and
> came across both documents. But as you said, information is all vague
> unfortunately. My hope is to find somebody here with practical
> experience comparing the operating platforms.

I write MySQL clients on this here WinXP laptop, usually connecting to
our own Linux server for development, and also to client machines and
hosted databases, through our shonky 2Mb slowband pipe here, and even
with the crap connection the Linux hosts are noticeably faster than my
127.0.0.1 connection to the local MySQL on the laptop.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Keith Sauvant wrote:
> > You need to learn how to tune MySQL for best performance for your
> > installation. Every one is different. And default or recommended
> > values are a good place to start. But they are only the start, not
> > the end.
>
> You are absolutely right.
>
> But I am not asking for how to fine tune the last 5 percent out of it. I
> am asking why and if a Windows installation of MySQL normally is >30%
> slower than a Linux installation on the same box.
>

Because Microsoft is shit?

Probably disk drivers.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ive got the same code running om two different Linux machiones. The
faster CPU at the end of a long line is markedly better than the one at
my knee .

It also has a SATA rather than IDE drive.

I suspect your answer is in the disk subsystem really. Linux is really
quite good in that area.

[J.O. Aho]

Keith Sauvant wrote:

> I am asking why and if a Windows installation of MySQL
> normally is >30% slower than a Linux installation on the same box.

Most likely the ODBC connection on the microsoft install that makes for the
loss of "operations".
--

//Aho