From owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Mar 31 22:28:50 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DD6A1106566C; Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:28:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from pooker.samsco.org (pooker.samsco.org [168.103.85.57]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 921A68FC17; Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:28:50 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Received: from phobos.samsco.home (phobos.samsco.home [192.168.254.11]) (authenticated bits=0) by pooker.samsco.org (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id m2VMSkZf065549; Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:28:46 -0600 (MDT) (envelope-from scottl@samsco.org) Message-ID: <47F1659E.8020001@samsco.org> Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 16:28:46 -0600 From: Scott Long User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; en-US; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071128 SeaMonkey/1.1.7 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Ivan Voras References: <47F147D8.3030905@samsco.org> <9bbcef730803311409ha25effam9dd522c9084783ad@mail.gmail.com> <47F15772.5010104@samsco.org> <9bbcef730803311434s48d3269cs1e8ae0fd1eb7ffc3@mail.gmail.com> <47F15F3C.9060100@samsco.org> <9bbcef730803311518h5e75a18dq1f11189ddae8b75c@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <9bbcef730803311518h5e75a18dq1f11189ddae8b75c@mail.gmail.com> X-Enigmail-Version: 0.95.6 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.4 required=5.4 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=failed version=3.1.8 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.1.8 (2007-02-13) on pooker.samsco.org Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Are large RAID stripe sizes useful with FreeBSD? X-BeenThere: freebsd-current@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Discussions about the use of FreeBSD-current List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:28:51 -0000 Ivan Voras wrote: > On 01/04/2008, Scott Long wrote: > >> If you have a RAID controller in front of the disks then the effects of >> TCQ are hidden from the OS; it might ultimately make the controller >> complete requests faster, but the controller already looks to the OS >> like a disk with a really deep queue. When you're dealing directly with >> the disks then TCQ/NCQ is required in order for batching of concurrent >> requests to occur. > > Thanks. I thought TCQ is also used between the OS and the controller > (since the RAID array is presented to the OS as opaque...). TCQ is a protocol specific to parallel SCSI that involves the use of protocol messages and control signals found only on a parallel SCSI bus. PCI RAID controllers that present a SCSI interface to the OS don't use real TCQ to communicate between the OS and the controller. Even though these kinds of controllers use the SCSI command protocol, they still use a custom device-specific low-level communication protocol that handles the transfer and queuing of commands. External RAID controllers/enclosures do use the appropriate SCSI/SAS/FC/SATA bus queuing mechanism, but I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about here. Scott