From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Aug 10 04:05:21 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BFCEE106566C for ; Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:05:21 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from jdc@koitsu.dyndns.org) Received: from qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net (qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net [76.96.30.80]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9C4348FC08 for ; Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:05:21 +0000 (UTC) Received: from omta12.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net ([76.96.30.44]) by qmta08.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id sD5V1e0040x6nqcA8U5M51; Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:05:21 +0000 Received: from koitsu.dyndns.org ([98.248.41.155]) by omta12.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net with comcast id sU5K1e00V3LrwQ28YU5Lgm; Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:05:20 +0000 Received: by icarus.home.lan (Postfix, from userid 1000) id CAABB9B42E; Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:05:19 -0700 (PDT) Date: Mon, 9 Aug 2010 21:05:19 -0700 From: Jeremy Chadwick To: Joshua Boyd Message-ID: <20100810040519.GA21921@icarus.home.lan> References: <20100809161124.GA4618@icarus.home.lan> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.20 (2009-06-14) Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, Ivan Voras Subject: Re: 8-STABLE Slow Write Speeds on ESXI 4.0 X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 10 Aug 2010 04:05:21 -0000 On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 11:59:46PM -0400, Joshua Boyd wrote: > On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 12:11 PM, Jeremy Chadwick > wrote: > > > On Mon, Aug 09, 2010 at 05:12:21PM +0200, Ivan Voras wrote: > > > On 9 August 2010 16:55, Joshua Boyd wrote: > > > > On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 1:58 PM, Ivan Voras wrote: > > > >> > > > >> On 7 August 2010 19:03, Joshua Boyd wrote: > > > >> > On Sat, Aug 7, 2010 at 7:57 AM, Ivan Voras > > wrote: > > > >> > > > >> >> It's unlikely they will help, but try: > > > >> >> > > > >> >> vfs.read_max=32 > > > >> >> > > > >> >> for read speeds (but test using the UFS file system, not as a raw > > > >> >> device > > > >> >> like above), and: > > > >> >> > > > >> >> vfs.hirunningspace=8388608 > > > >> >> vfs.lorunningspace=4194304 > > > >> >> > > > >> >> for writes. Again, it's unlikely but I'm interested in results you > > > >> >> achieve. > > > >> >> > > > >> > > > > >> > This is interesting. Write speeds went up to 40MBish. Still slow, > > but 4x > > > >> > faster than before. > > > >> > [root@git ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/var/testfile bs=1M count=250 > > > >> > 250+0 records in > > > >> > 250+0 records out > > > >> > 262144000 bytes transferred in 6.185955 secs (42377288 bytes/sec) > > > >> > [root@git ~]# dd if=/var/testfile of=/dev/null > > > >> > 512000+0 records in > > > >> > 512000+0 records out > > > >> > 262144000 bytes transferred in 0.811397 secs (323077424 bytes/sec) > > > >> > So read speeds are up to what they should be, but write speeds are > > still > > > >> > significantly below what they should be. > > > >> > > > >> Well, you *could* double the size of "runningspace" tunables and try > > that > > > >> :) > > > >> > > > >> Basically, in tuning these two settings we are cheating: increasing > > > >> read-ahead (read_max) and write in-flight buffering (runningspace) in > > > >> order to offload as much IO to the controller (in this case vmware) as > > > >> soon as possible, so to reschedule horrible IO-caused context switches > > > >> vmware has. It will help sequential performance, but nothing can help > > > >> random IOs. > > > > > > > > Hmm. So what you're saying is that FreeBSD doesn't properly support the > > ESXI > > > > controller? > > > > > > Nope, I'm saying you will never get raw disk-like performance with any > > > "full" virtualization product, regardless of specifics. If you want > > > performance, go OS-level (like jails) or some example of > > > paravirtualization. > > > > > > > I'm going to try 7.3-RELEASE today, just to make sure that this isn't a > > > > regression of some kind. It seems from reading other posts that this > > used to > > > > work properly and satisfactorily. > > > > > > Nope, I've been messing around with VMWare for a long time and the > > > performance penalty was always there. > > > > I thought Intel VT-d was supposed to help address things like this? > > > > Our ESXI boxes are AMD rigs, so VT-d doesn't help here. AMD offers the same technology; it's called AMD-Vi these days, and was previously known as IOMMU. I don't have any familiarity with it. -- | Jeremy Chadwick jdc@parodius.com | | Parodius Networking http://www.parodius.com/ | | UNIX Systems Administrator Mountain View, CA, USA | | Making life hard for others since 1977. PGP: 4BD6C0CB |