From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Apr 23 00:50:30 2014 Return-Path: Delivered-To: hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [8.8.178.115]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ADH-AES256-SHA (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id C54E9A3A; Wed, 23 Apr 2014 00:50:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-pd0-x22a.google.com (mail-pd0-x22a.google.com [IPv6:2607:f8b0:400e:c02::22a]) (using TLSv1 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (Client CN "smtp.gmail.com", Issuer "Google Internet Authority G2" (verified OK)) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 96305117B; Wed, 23 Apr 2014 00:50:30 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-pd0-f170.google.com with SMTP id v10so188548pde.15 for ; Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:50:30 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=VNi6NkWbHb5I8q0WkagN3sWL89PHp/C6+lGPsQw2tg4=; b=0yBJbvafiwofDATWEuQ/7F2XE6oqQa8eIWS2kAu1Vsb/ddM5eTJqxvt+0t2E6jlfEq iPXawClPAEXKJ3Djw640DVMxeHkWzLaCunvVA88LkgaH+Tvk37MCNuH1tN1MDSxCduJo Is7fPhQTeaYwqYU0ZadDAfOmQvRtF1GQL1lKvteZAp/hHUnIxf4eabODJyjjVbNN4t20 aw/JMchNfNsQNz6mipnsB+76qseUncpJTSgcic/k7LW1YRDxdvu52qrDtvRVitbmZKbB C2RHDuRYzJ6kzH2R9zoxZW4gt6E5ACd8aQ+uO7bqnuiKliiGIZ9x+57dp4Ga+fiqreLz 1JAA== MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Received: by 10.68.178.162 with SMTP id cz2mr48368354pbc.51.1398214230257; Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:50:30 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.70.55.169 with HTTP; Tue, 22 Apr 2014 17:50:30 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <20140422222525.GR1321@albert.catwhisker.org> References: <5355E9F9.5080401@freebsd.org> <63190425-672D-4A05-AAB0-B19A49EDB739@cryptomonkeys.org> <20140422222525.GR1321@albert.catwhisker.org> Date: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 19:50:30 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: Re: Pointer to info on migrating from UFS2 -> ZFS? From: Adam Vande More To: David Wolfskill Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.17 Cc: Louis Kowolowski , hackers@freebsd.org X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.17 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 23 Apr 2014 00:50:30 -0000 On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 5:25 PM, David Wolfskill wrote: > I appreciate the responses, but I seem to have failed to communicate at > least a couple of fairly important aspects of what I'm trying to do. > So.... > > On Mon, Apr 21, 2014 at 06:40:05PM -0700, Louis Kowolowski wrote: > > I?d probably suggest a couple things: > > * VirtualBox (or equiv) for setting up test environments that are easy > to create and destroy. For all the beginning stuff I can think of, you > should be able to do just fine with a virtual environment. VMs with a half > dozen virtual disks that are 2G ea come in handy with playing with ZFS. > > I have existing hardware -- several instantiations of it, including a > couple of test machines. I am trying to find out if the use of ZFS (vs. > UFS2+SU) on the existing hardware will provide a performance advantage > (and if so, how much, as switching from UFS2 to ZFS is going to be > extremely painful). > It's very difficult to make any detailed concise comment since we know virtually nothing about your hw or workload. What do you need? More iops? Then use a ZIL (maybe even a battery backed DDR drive) to increase writes, and lots of RAM and cache device to increase read speed. When I had this setup, diskinfo run on VM's backed by ZVOL's would reflect SSD, not 7200 spinning media speeds. Also things like transparent compression can help certain workloads tremendously. If you're dealing with 99% text data by compressing the data you effectively drastically lower the iops needed to work the data and off-load the work to the CPU's which are obvious a lot faster than disk. There are also a lot of different RAID(z) qualities so care should be taken when choosing layouts. -- Adam