From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 28 23:58:51 2005 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1AE5016A4CE for ; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:58:51 +0000 (GMT) Received: from linda-2.paradise.net.nz (bm-2a.paradise.net.nz [202.0.58.21]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7C0DA43D1D for ; Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:58:50 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from markir@paradise.net.nz) Received: from smtp-3.paradise.net.nz (smtp-3b.paradise.net.nz [202.0.32.212]) by linda-2.paradise.net.nz (Paradise.net.nz) with ESMTP id <0IB100HEDXA0UN@linda-2.paradise.net.nz> for freebsd-stable@freebsd.org; Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:58:49 +1300 (NZDT) Received: from [192.168.1.11] (218-101-13-150.paradise.net.nz [218.101.13.150]) by smtp-3.paradise.net.nz (Postfix) with ESMTP id BE838AE4FD; Sat, 29 Jan 2005 12:58:47 +1300 (NZDT) Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 13:02:54 +1300 From: Mark Kirkwood In-reply-to: <1106945920.41faa7806f30b@secure.creativeimage.ca> To: Oren Baum Message-id: <41FAD2AE.4000707@paradise.net.nz> MIME-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit X-Accept-Language: en-us, en User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; FreeBSD i386; en-US; rv:1.7.2) Gecko/20041016 References: <1106945920.41faa7806f30b@secure.creativeimage.ca> cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Seemingly odd disc i/o behaviour, need help to diagnose X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 28 Jan 2005 23:58:51 -0000 Oren Baum wrote: > > Configuration: > > FreeBSD 4.4-RELEASE > apache+mod_ssl-1.3.22+2.8.5_1 > mysql-server-3.23.42 > Hard Drive (dual ATA disks, no RAID) on a Dell P4 PowerEDGE server > > We had many speed and timeout issues so we recompiled the kernel with > maxusers=128 instead of the previous 32 and moved the hard drives into a new > P4 2.8Ghz PowerEdge Case. > What model number Poweredge ? (so we can examine specifications if need be). The amount and type of RAM would be good to know as well. > atapci0: port 0xffa0-0xffaf,0x374-0x377,0x170- > 0x177,0x3f4-0x3f7,0x1f0-0x1f7 irq 11 at device 31.1 on pci0 > ata0: at 0x1f0 irq 14 on atapci0 > atapci1: port 0xfea0-0xfeaf,0xfe30-0xfe33,0xfe20- > 0xfe27,0xfe10-0xfe13,0xfe00-0xfe07 mem 0xdff3fc00-0xdff3ffff irq 5 at device > 31.2 on pci0 > ata2: at 0xfe00 on atapci1 > ata3: at 0xfe20 on atapci1 > FreeBSD 4.4 is detecting a 'Generic PCI ATA Controller', which may mean the capabilities are very dumped down (and performance is poor) - as no doubt other posters will mention, let me suggest 4.10 or 4.11 for better HW detection :-) > If we run pine on a large mailbox or any other disk i/o intensive task, all > other processes in motion seem to stall until the disk i/o is complete. > This manifests itself in timeouts on webpages that require DB data, IMAP > timeouts for other mail accounts, and even odd console/shell behaviour. > An additional possibility is that your old hard drives are becoming worn out. It is probably worth buying 2 fast new ones (maybe SATA if your Dell supports it - I suspect you will *need* be off 4.4 before trying this tho!). regards Mark