From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 9 18:50:58 2004 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 C04A716A4CE for ; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 18:50:58 +0000 (GMT) Received: from smtp006.bizmail.sc5.yahoo.com (smtp006.bizmail.sc5.yahoo.com [66.163.175.83]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 9F2AD43D4C for ; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 18:50:58 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from noackjr@alumni.rice.edu) Received: from unknown (HELO optimator.noacks.org) (noackjr@supercrime.org@70.240.198.174 with login) by smtp006.bizmail.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 9 Dec 2004 18:50:58 -0000 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by optimator.noacks.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A864261B9; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:50:57 -0600 (CST) 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 03280-02; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:50:55 -0600 (CST) Received: from www.noacks.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by optimator.noacks.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8B9AF614E; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:50:55 -0600 (CST) Received: from 69.53.57.66 (SquirrelMail authenticated user noackjr); by www.noacks.org with HTTP; Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:50:55 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <17418.69.53.57.66.1102618255.squirrel@69.53.57.66> In-Reply-To: References: Date: Thu, 9 Dec 2004 12:50:55 -0600 (CST) From: "Jon Noack" To: "Bill Anderson" User-Agent: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a X-Mailer: SquirrelMail/1.4.3a MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Importance: Normal X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at noacks.org cc: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Subject: Re: 2120S poor performance 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: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 18:50:58 -0000 Bill Anderson wrote: > I've got a 3x72g RAID5 array with U320 disks on an Adaptec 2120S > controller under Freebsd 4.10. I'm getting about 25MB/s for sequential > reads/writes (e.g. dd if=/dev/aacd0s1b of=/dev/null bs=32k). I've > turned on write caching for the container (container set cache > /write_cache_enable) and turned off the read caching, per previous posts > to this list. I'm going to try setting hw.aac.iosize_max to 96k tonight > to see if that helps. I'm currently using an IDE disk that gets about > 45MB/s, so I can hardly consider it an "upgrade" to switch to a 25MB/s > U320 SCSI system. :/ > > I've also read that the 2120S is slow because of its design. I'm trying > to figure out whether the performance can be increased significantly (I > saw a posting of a linux user getting 37.5MB/s, which although still slow > might be acceptable), or if I'm better off getting a new card. I'm > thinking the latter is the case based on previous postings, but since it > will probably be quite expensive to replace it, I wanted to get some more > data. > > What performance should I be expecting from a decent U320 RAID5 > controller? > > Has anyone gotten a 2120S to perform above 30Mb/s in FreeBSD? > > What's the cheapest controller that still gives reasonable performance? > (If you could give a couple different ones, with their associated > performance (under FreeBSD), or tell me where to find such information, > that would be great) The asr driver is in need of a lot of attention. Still, testing random read/write is much better than testing sequential i/o as most real-world workloads aren't sequential in nature. The raidtest utility (now in ports) does an excellent job with random read/write testing. There are many quality, (relatively) cheap controllers out there, but if you're looking to stick with Adaptec get a 2130S. The 2130S uses the aac driver, which is quite well tuned and maintained by Scott Long. Jon