From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Apr 19 19:44:16 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D4D8816A4CE for ; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:44:16 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp815.mail.sc5.yahoo.com (smtp815.mail.sc5.yahoo.com [66.163.170.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9252543D39 for ; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:44:16 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from noackjr@alumni.rice.edu) Received: from unknown (HELO optimator.noacks.org) (noacks@swbell.net@70.240.205.64 with login) by smtp815.mail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 19 Apr 2005 19:14:18 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by optimator.noacks.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1BA576143; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:14:17 -0500 (CDT) Received: from optimator.noacks.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (optimator.noacks.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with LMTP id 20435-15-2; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:14:15 -0500 (CDT) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (optimator [192.168.1.11]) by optimator.noacks.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BEC3760D5; Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:14:15 -0500 (CDT) Message-ID: <42655887.7060203@alumni.rice.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 14:14:15 -0500 From: Jon Noack User-Agent: Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0.2 (Windows/20050317) X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Eivind Hestnes References: <20050419183335.F18008131@joshua.stabbursmoen.no> In-Reply-To: <20050419183335.F18008131@joshua.stabbursmoen.no> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at noacks.org cc: performance@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Performance Intel Pro 1000 MT (PWLA8490MT) X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: noackjr@alumni.rice.edu List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2005 19:44:16 -0000 On 4/19/2005 1:32 PM, Eivind Hestnes wrote: > I have an Intel Pro 1000 MT (PWLA8490MT) NIC (em(4) driver 1.7.35) installed > in a Pentium III 500 Mhz with 512 MB RAM (100 Mhz) running FreeBSD 5.4-RC3. > The machine is routing traffic between multiple VLANs. Recently I did a > benchmark with/without device polling enabled. Without device polling I was > able to transfer roughly 180 Mbit/s. The router however was suffering when > doing this benchmark. Interrupt load was peaking 100% - overall the system > itself was quite unusable (_very_ high system load). With device polling > enabled the interrupt kept stable around 40-50% and max transfer rate was > nearly 70 Mbit/s. Not very scientific tests, but it gave me a pin point. The card is plugged into a 32-bit PCI slot, correct? If so, 180 Mbit/s is decent. I have a gigabit LAN at home using Pro 1000 MTs (in 32-bit PCI slots) and get NFS transfers maxing out around 23 MB/s, which is ~180 Mbit/s. Gigabit performance with 32-bit cards is atrocious. It reminds me of the old 100 Mbit/s ISA cards... > > > HZ set to 1000 as recommended in README for the em(4) driver. Driver is of > cource compiled into kernel. You'll need HZ set to more than 1000 for gigabit; bump it up to at least 2000. That should increase polling throughput a lot. I'm not sure about other polling parameters, however. Jon