Date: Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:24:59 -0700 From: Don <samba@geeksrus.ca> To: aic7xxx@freebsd.org Subject: FC3 / aic7xxx / Promise VTrak 12100 RAID woes Message-ID: <430275CB.4040706@geeksrus.ca>
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Hi,
From looking through the archives, it doesn't look like I'm the first
person to have "fun" with Promise RAID systems... although I didn't
notice any specific discussions about the VTrak.
I have a FC3 stock system (kernel 2.6.9) with an Adaptec 7899 card and
it is connected to a Promise VTrak 12100 RAID loaded up with about 2.5
TB of disks. The system "works", however it is slow. I'm been trying
to track down the source of the problem. Using a couple of different
hard drive benchmarks (PerformanceTest from www.passmark.com over samba
and Bonnie++ on the linux box itself) I have discovered that the "char
sequential write" speed of the drive is absolute crap.
Bonnie++ says that the sequential "block" write is 26 MB/s while the
sequential "char" write is 0.86MB/s. Similarly the network samba test
says that sequential write is 0.38MB/s while sequential read is 9MB/s.
I've run bonnie on the local sata drive and another scsi RAID system.
The glaring difference in performance is the sequential char write speed
for the VTrak.
In digging around I've seen some people claim that performance of scsi
RAID disks can have to do with the card configuration. I have checked
"dmesg" and noted:
scsi3 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.36
<Adaptec 3960D Ultra160 SCSI adapter>
aic7899: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs
scsi3:A:10:0: DV failed to configure device. Please file a bug report
against this driver.
(scsi3:A:10): 160.000MB/s transfers (80.000MHz DT, offset 62, 16bit)
Vendor: Promise Model: 11 Disk RAID5 Rev: V0.0
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 04
scsi3:A:10:0: Tagged Queuing enabled. Depth 4
SCSI device sdc: 2449856640 1024-byte hdwr sectors (2508653 MB)
SCSI device sdc: drive cache: write through
sdc: sdc1 sdc2
Attached scsi disk sdc at scsi3, channel 0, id 10, lun 0
I've seen this "DV failed" message on this list archives, but for most
people it seemed to have more serious consequences, whereas for this
system it seems to roll right past the error. I'm not sure if the error
is relevant or if its a red herring.
I've put a mesage in to Promise support but am not holding my breath.
If anyone has any advice, or recommendations on how to track this
problem down further, I would really appreciate it.
Thanks in advance,
Don
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