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    Raw Devices and Oracle - 20 Common Questions and Answers: 1. What Is A Raw Device?

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    Raw Devices and Oracle - 20 Common Questions and Answers: 1. What Is A Raw Device?

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    Anubha Verma
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    oracle

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    20 Common Qsts About Raid

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    Raw Devices and Oracle - 20 Common Questions and Answers: 1. What Is A Raw Device?

    Uploaded by

    Anubha Verma
    oracle

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Download as pdf or txt
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    Raw Devices and Oracle - 20 Common Questions and Answers

    1. What is a raw device?

    A raw device, also known as a raw partition, is a disk partition that is not mounted and written to
    via the UNIX filesystem, but is accessed via a character-special device driver. It is up to the
    application how the data is written since there is no filesystem to do this on the application's
    behalf.

    2. How can a raw device be recognised?

    In the '/dev' directory, there are essentially two type of files: block special and character special.
    Block special files are used when data is transferred to or from a device in fixed size amounts
    (blocks), whereas character special files are used when data is transferred in varying size
    amounts. Raw devices use character special files; a long listing of the '/dev' directory shows them
    with a 'c' at the leftmost position of the permissions field, e.g.

    crw-rw-rw- 1 root system 15, 0 Mar 12 09:45 rfd0

    In addition, character special files usually have names beginning with an 'r', as shown in the
    above example. Some devices, principally disks, have both a block special device and a
    character special device associated with them; for the floppy diskette shown above, there is also
    a device

    brw-rw-rw- 1 root system 15, 0 Apr 16 15:42 /dev/fd0

    So the presence of a 'c' in a device does NOT necessarily mean this is a raw device suitable for
    use by Oracle (or another application). Generally, a raw device needs to be created and set aside
    for Oracle (or whatever application is going to use it) when the UNIX system is set up - therefore,
    this needs to be done with close cooperation between the DBA and UNIX system administrator.

    Once a raw device is in use by Oracle, it must be owned by the oracle account, and may be
    identified in this way.

    3. What are the benefits of raw devices?

    There can be a performance benefit from using raw devices, since a write to a raw device
    bypasses the UNIX buffer cache, the data is transferred directly from the Oracle buffer cache to
    the disk. This is not guaranteed, though. If there is no I/O bottleneck, raw devices will not help.
    The performance benefit if there is a bottleneck can vary between a few percent to something like
    40%. Note that the overall amount of I/O is not reduced; it is just done more efficiently.

    Another lesser benefit of raw devices is that no filesystem overhead is incurred in terms of
    inode allocation and maintenance or free block allocation and maintenance.

    4. How can I tell if I will benefit from using raw devices?

    There are two distinct parts to this: first, the Oracle database and application should be
    examined and tuned as necessary, using one or both of the following:

    -UTLBstat and UTLestat utilities (in $ORACLE_HOME/rdbms/admin)

    After checking your Oracle database and application, the next stage is to identify UNIX-level I/O
    bottlenecks. This can be done using a UNIX utility such as 'sar' or 'vmstat'. See the relevant
    manual pages for details.

    OracleSource.net 2003 All Rights Reserved


    If you identify that there is a UNIX-level problem with I/O, now is the time to start using raw
    devices. This may well require reorganisation of the entire UNIX system (assuming there are no
    spare partitions available).

    5. Are there circumstances when raw devices have to be used?

    Yes. If you are using the Oracle Parallel Server, all data files, control files, and redo log files
    must be placed on raw partitions so they can be shared between nodes. This is a limitation with
    the UNIX operating system. Also, if you wish to use List I/O or Asynchronous I/O, some versions
    of UNIX require the data files and control files to be on raw devices for this to work. Consult your
    platform-specific documentation for details.

    6. Can I use the entire raw partition for Oracle?

    No. You should specify a tablespace slightly smaller in size than the raw partition size,
    specifically at least two Oracle block sizes smaller.

    7. Can I use the first partition of a disk for a raw device?

    This is not recommended. On older versions of UNIX, the first partition contained such
    information as the disk partition table or logical volume control information, which if overwritten
    could render the disk useless. More recent UNIX versions do not have this problem as disk
    management is done in a more sophisticated manner. Consult your operating system vendor for
    more details, but if in any doubt do not use the first partition.

    8. Who should own the raw device?

    You will need to create the raw devices as root, but the ownership should be changed to the
    'oracle' account afterwards. The group must also be changed to the 'dba' group (usually called
    dba).

    9. How do I specify a raw device in Oracle commands?

    When using a raw device you need to specify the full pathname in single quotes, and use the
    REUSE parameter. e.g. if there are two raw devices, each 30Mb in size, and the database has a
    4K block size, the relevant command would look like this:

    create tablespace raw_tabspace datafile '/dev/raw1' size 30712K REUSE


    datafile '/dev/raw2' size 30712K REUSE

    10. Does the Oracle block size have any relevance on a raw device?

    It is of less importance than for a UNIX file; the size of the Oracle block can be changed, but it
    must be a multiple of the physical block size as it is only possible to seek to physical block
    boundaries and hence write only in multiples of the physical block size.

    11. How can I back up my database files if they are on raw devices?

    You cannot use utilities such as 'tar' or 'cpio', which expect a filesystem to be present. You
    must use the 'dd' command, as follows:

    dd if=/dev/raw1 of=/dev/rmt0 bs=16k

    See the UNIX man page on dd for further details.

    OracleSource.net 2003 All Rights Reserved


    It is also possible to copy the raw device file (using dd) to a normal UNIX file, and then use a
    utility such as 'tar' or 'cpio', but this requires more disk space and has a greater administrative
    overhead.

    12. Providing I am not using Parallel Server, can I use a mixture of raw partitions and filesystem
    files for my tablespace locations?

    Yes. The drawback is that this makes your backup strategy more complicated.

    13. Should I store my redo log files on raw partitions?

    Redo logs are particularly suitable candidates for being located on raw partitions, as they are
    write-intensive and in addition are written to sequentially. If Parallel Server is being used, redo
    logs must be stored on raw partitions.

    14. Can I use raw partitions for archive logs?

    No. Archive logs must be stored on a partition with a UNIX filesystem.

    15. Can I have more than one data file on a raw partition?

    No. This means you should be careful when setting up the raw partition. Too small a size will
    necessitate reorganisation when you run out of space, whereas too large a size will waste any
    space the file does not use.

    16. Should my raw partitions be on the same disk device?

    This is inadvisable, as there is likely to be contention. You should place raw devices on
    different disks, which should also be on different controllers.

    17. Do I need to make my raw partitions all the same size?

    This is not essential, but it provides flexibility in the event of having to change the database
    configuration.

    18. Do I need to change any UNIX kernel parameters if I decide to use raw devices?

    No, but you may wish to reduce the size of the UNIX buffer cache if no other applications are
    using the machine.

    19. What other UNIX-level changes could help to improve I/O performance?

    RAID and disk mirroring can be beneficial, depending on the application characteristics,
    especially whether it is read or write-intensive, or a mixture.

    20. How can I gain further performance benefits, after considering all of the above?

    You will need to buy more disk drives and controllers for your system, to spread the I/O load
    between devices.

    OracleSource.net 2003 All Rights Reserved

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