Can Berkeley DB store data to raw disk partitions?
Berkeley DB wasn’t designed to use raw disk partitions, for a few different reasons: First, using a raw disk partition requires specialized archival, tuning and other database administration tools, because you can’t trivially write tools to access the physical database and other files. Berkeley DB’s design allows use of existing tools for database administration (for example, using the POSIX cp, tar, or pax utilities for hot backups), resulting in better integration into the local environment. This is also an advantage for the 3rd party software vendors that license DB, as they don’t want to require non-standard archival procedures or tools or having to create and provide the same to their customers. Another reason is it’s difficult or impossible to extend raw partitions, and so it becomes significantly harder to change the size of a database installation. When using the file system as DB does, you can mount another partition or disk, and you’re done. (I should mention that DB database
