From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Mon Sep 1 10:14:22 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B1ED816A4BF for ; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 10:14:22 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp2.bahnhof.se (mail.bahnhof.se [213.136.33.1]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A08D843FE9 for ; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 10:14:20 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from mark.rowlands@mypost.se) Received: from pcmarpxy.mine.nu (81-170-150-191.bahnhofbredband.net [81.170.150.191]) by smtp2.bahnhof.se (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0366EB8084; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:14:18 +0200 (MEST) Received: from localhost (localhost.mine.nu [127.0.0.1]) by pcmarpxy.mine.nu (Postfix) with ESMTP id C3F6F7546; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:14:18 +0200 (CEST) Received: from pcmarpxy.mine.nu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (pcmarpxy.mine.nu [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 70061-09; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:14:18 +0200 (CEST) Received: from EXCHSRV1.mwrwin2k.se (kalendar.mine.nu [192.168.0.4]) by pcmarpxy.mine.nu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31FCB7526; Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:14:18 +0200 (CEST) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Date: Mon, 1 Sep 2003 19:14:17 +0200 Content-class: urn:content-classes:message Message-ID: <4789E43478F3994BB8D967C73FD9C6884EEE@EXCHSRV1.mwrwin2k.se> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft Exchange V6.5.6944.0 X-MS-Has-Attach: X-MS-TNEF-Correlator: Thread-Topic: Vinum stripe values table? Thread-Index: AcNwCSyrlruy+P08Rx+BfzgBY9EaKAAn3jhA From: "mark rowlands" To: "J.A. Terranson" , Subject: RE: Vinum stripe values table? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 01 Sep 2003 17:14:22 -0000 > J.A. Terranson > The values to plug into vinum for stripe size has always been vague, > other than avoiding a power of 2. =20 Where is the vagueness here? "A good guideline for stripe size is between 256 kB and 512 kB. Avoid powers of 2, however: they tend to cause all superblocks to be placed on the first subdisk." > Is there any way to calculate an=20 > optimal value? Or is there a table anywhere? I did some work on this and came to the unsurprising conclusion of "it depends"=20 The needs of a database server / web server / ftp server / user file server are not equivalent, in addition, obviously the exact layout of "your" vinum configuration plays a non-trivial part.=20 > Given an 8 drive raid5 array, where each drive is an identical 4096m > drive, where do I start? You have already started when you created an Raid 5 configuration ;-)=20 Well, I created my vinum configuration, made some wild guesses as to what=20 I was going to be using it for (mostly web-serving of files of the order of 4-5MB) and then ran some tests, measuring both with bonnie and vinum's builtin statistics using different stripe sizes and increasing numbers of concurrent transactions, using both bonnie and scripted file transfers to generate disc i/o.=20 Overall, with my config 4 disks striped raid 0 on an promise ide controllers (real men always run Raid 0 !) an 8k stripe seemed to function well for me in this distinctly unscientific test scenario. Real world performance....it's ok....could it be better, probably. But it's good enough for what this machine does.