Tracking software: huge databases ?

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maolitas

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Hello,
I used the trial version of PT3 and HEM, and I had the feeling that the databases grow quite fast.

May someone let me know if I need a lot of space on my hard drive, with an average play of 8 hours a day on 2 tables ?

Thanks
 
greenokom

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Absolutely no!

I have no experience with the software but These softwares work with Text Files, these files do not require too much disk capacity.
If you have on your hard disk 1GB free You can be relaxed.

sorry about my english :)
 
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17Fabrizio17

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I just want my computer as fast as the day I bought it, all the rest comes after.
 
dmorris68

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I have no experience with the software but These softwares work with Text Files, these files do not require too much disk capacity.
If you have on your hard disk 1GB free You can be relaxed.

sorry about my english :)
Sorry, but this is very much incorrect.

All tracking software use an RDBMS (PostgreSQL, in the case of both HEM and PT3) for their database. These are not just text files, and depending on their configuration and the number of hands you have imported, they can grow fairly large. 1GB certainly isn't enough disk space for a database of any significant size. I haven't looked at it in awhile, and I'm at work right now where I can't, but my database alone is many GB. And mine isn't that large compared to serious grinders or those who purchase datamined hands.

That said, drive space shouldn't really be a concern. For about what you pay for HEM or PT3, you can buy a 1TB drive. 500GB drives are selling for $50 or less. HEM/PT3 databases can also be stored on an external drive if for some reason you can't install a new drive in your computer.
 
dj11

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Example;

I have stats for both cash and tournies;

totals, since the end of 2007;

players.......... = 67,043
hands........... =164,914
Sessions/T's....= 1,871

In this case a session is a no death tourney, or a tourney is a fixed end session...doesn't matter.

The data is stored in 2 folders, PT3, and postgres and combined eat up 4.22 gig. Comparatively this is not a lot of real estate, but could be significant if your system is full of other less important bs.

I lost my hard drive a few months back and was unable to recover all my hands and tournies. I recovered a lot of them, but I think I lost more than half.

So not only does the growing data eat up a significant chunk of real estate, the importance of regularly backing up the data should be considered. Once you have the data it becomes precious, and you don't want to lose it.
 
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Jillychemung

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In computer terms the PT3/HEM DB sizes aren't very large at all. You should be able to store your DB and copies of all the HH files for a year in less than 250GB which is a very cheap disk size these days. And if you are grinding multiple tables for a significant amount of time you will probably have invested in a fast multi-core processor and a hardware based RAID controller with a good cache size and 5 disks so that you get good DB response.
 
dmorris68

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In computer terms the PT3/HEM DB sizes aren't very large at all. You should be able to store your DB and copies of all the HH files for a year in less than 250GB which is a very cheap disk size these days.
I would say that statement is relative. For a computer geek like myself you're right -- 250GB isn't much at all. But then again I have a total of 9 PCs, laptops, and servers within arm's reach in my home office, all with access to roughly 10 terabytes of storage, most of which is on a RAID5 NAS. And I still have a stack of 500GB drives on my desk from when I recently upgraded the NAS with 1TB drives. I should note that none of this was for poker, however. ;)

But for typical home users (and I'd say poker players) running more ordinary PC's (especially laptops) 250GB is not a small amount of data, either. A lot of home desktops don't even have 250GB drives in them. But as I mentioned above, if available space is a problem, the cost to upgrade is so low as to make it a non-issue for any serious player.

And if you are grinding multiple tables for a significant amount of time you will probably have invested in a fast multi-core processor and a hardware based RAID controller with a good cache size and 5 disks so that you get good DB response.
Jilly, maybe you're being a bit tongue-in-cheek here (and :) if you are) but if not then I'd be surprised to find any poker player, I don't care how much they grind, using hardware RAID and 5 disks simply to play poker. And if so, I'd say they've been misguided. RAID simply doesn't do much for single-user desktop performance, including database operations. Benchmarks have shown that even RAID0 striping, the fastest but also most vulnerable and risky of RAID topologies, generally don't outperform modern, fast HDDs in desktop scenarios.

Just having a reasonably fast HDD is enough from a poker software performance standpoint. A mirrored array like RAID1 would be useful for data redundancy, not performance. But I agree that a fast CPU and lots of RAM are important if you're multi-tabling and running a HUD, and especially so if you're also running TableNinja or a bunch of AHK scripts, because all of these going on at once are both CPU and RAM intensive. Otherwise you'll find your HUD and hot-keys lagging as you open up a lot of tables. Personally I do run an overclocked quad-core CPU with 8GB RAM, but RAID is confined to my NAS where nothing poker-related exists (other than videos and TV shows). My poker PC's single data drive, a 32MB cache 750GB SATA model, is more than fast enough to keep up with poker database I/O. Even my laptop, a relatively modest (by today's standards) dual-core 2.4Ghz with 4GB RAM and dual 200GB drives (not sure if they're even 7200rpm) handles database I/O just fine.
 
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maolitas

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Many thanks for all these informations, I clearly need to upgrade my hard drive because I have just 1Gb available and ofter have to find space.

Thanks again :)
 
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