Date: Fri, 08 Mar 2002 15:07:57 -0500 From: Eric Dantan Rzewnicki <rzewnickie@rfa.org> To: gibbs@FreeBSD.org, aic7xxx@FreeBSD.org Cc: network@rfa.org Subject: performance issues: linux aic7xxx, 29160, Radion IFT-7200 Message-ID: <3C891A1D.D757AC00@rfa.org>
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Hello Justin,
We are experiencing some performance issues with our external Radion
raid device and the "new" aic7xxx drivers in linux kernel 2.4.x when
compared with either 2.2.x kernels or 2.4.x kernels using the
aic7xxx_old driver. Our hardware:
AMD Athlon 1.3 GHz
ASUS A7A266 motherboard (ALiMAGiK1 chipset: M1647 north bridge and
M1535D+ south bridge)
1GB PC133 RAM
Apaptec 29160 host adaptor
Seagate ST318405LW 16GB internal system disk
Radion IFT-7200 external hardware RAID (configured as RAID 5 w/5 150GB
maxtor IDE drives)
The performance of the Seagate drive on the internal connector of the
29160 is fairly consistent between the two driver versions. The Radion
on the 29160's external connector is more than 3 times as fast with the
old driver when compared to the new driver.
Here are the relevent sections of /var/log/dmesg and hdparm output for
driver version 6.2.5 and linux 2.4.18. (We got consistently similar
results with aic7xxx version 6.2.4 with both linux 2.4.18 and 2.4.16):
newbunyan:~# uname -r
2.4.18-aic7xxx-6.2.5
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0c.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 01:00.0
scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.5
<Adaptec 29160 Ultra160 SCSI adapter>
aic7892: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs
Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST318405LW Rev: 5063
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
(scsi0:A:0): 160.000MB/s transfers (80.000MHz DT, offset 63, 16bit)
Vendor: IFT Model: IFT-7200 Rev: 0144
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 04
(scsi0:A:1): 160.000MB/s transfers (80.000MHz DT, offset 62, 16bit)
Vendor: PLEXTOR Model: CD-ROM PX-40TW Rev: 1.04
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
(scsi0:A:8): 40.000MB/s transfers (20.000MHz, offset 15, 16bit)
scsi0:A:0:0: Tagged Queuing enabled. Depth 8
scsi0:A:1:0: Tagged Queuing enabled. Depth 8
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 35843670 512-byte hdwr sectors (18352 MB)
Partition check:
sda: sda1 sda2
SCSI device sdb: 1280654336 512-byte hdwr sectors (-443816 MB)
sdb: sdb1
newbunyan:~# hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.68 seconds = 38.10 MB/sec
newbunyan:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 4.16 seconds = 15.38 MB/sec
Here are the relevent sections of /var/log/dmesg and hdparm output for
driver version 5.2.4 and linux 2.4.16:
newbunyan:~# uname -r
2.4.16-bunyan-oldscsi-0
SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00
PCI: Found IRQ 11 for device 00:0c.0
PCI: Sharing IRQ 11 with 01:00.0
(scsi0) <Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra 160/m SCSI host adapter> found at PCI
0/12/0
(scsi0) Wide Channel, SCSI ID=7, 32/255 SCBs
(scsi0) Downloading sequencer code... 396 instructions downloaded
scsi0 : Adaptec AHA274x/284x/294x (EISA/VLB/PCI-Fast SCSI) 5.2.4/5.2.0
<Adaptec AIC-7892 Ultra 160/m SCSI host adapter>
Vendor: SEAGATE Model: ST318405LW Rev: 5063
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
(scsi0:0:0:1) Synchronous at 160.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 63.
Vendor: IFT Model: IFT-7200 Rev: 0144
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 04
(scsi0:0:1:1) Synchronous at 160.0 Mbyte/sec, offset 62.
Vendor: PLEXTOR Model: CD-ROM PX-40TW Rev: 1.04
Type: CD-ROM ANSI SCSI revision: 02
Attached scsi disk sda at scsi0, channel 0, id 0, lun 0
Attached scsi disk sdb at scsi0, channel 0, id 1, lun 0
SCSI device sda: 35843670 512-byte hdwr sectors (18352 MB)
Partition check:
sda: sda1 sda2
SCSI device sdb: 1280654336 512-byte hdwr sectors (-443816 MB)
sdb: sdb1
newbunyan:~# hdparm -t /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.68 seconds = 38.10 MB/sec
newbunyan:~# hdparm -t /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.35 seconds = 47.41 MB/sec
Do you have any ideas on what could be causing this performance
degradation with the new driver? We could conceivably just use the old
driver, but since it is no longer being developed it seems better to try
to find a solution for getting better performance from the new driver.
Is there any other information we can provide to help in sorting this
out?
Thank you for writing this otherwise excellent driver and thanks in
advance for any help you can give us.
Sincerely,
Eric Rzewnicki
Radio Free Asia
Network Information Services
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