From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jan 2 09:14:09 2004 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 EDA1516A4CE for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 09:14:08 -0800 (PST) Received: from smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (smithers.neuro.mcw.edu [141.106.106.66]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7AC1F43D48 for ; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 09:14:05 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from bacon@smithers.neuro.mcw.edu) Received: from smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (localhost [127.0.0.1]) i02HDlXg039205; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:13:47 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from bacon@smithers.neuro.mcw.edu) Received: from localhost (localhost [[UNIX: localhost]]) by smithers.neuro.mcw.edu (8.12.9/8.12.9/Submit) id i02HDlYL039204; Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:13:47 -0600 (CST) From: Jason Bacon Organization: MCW To: Francisco Reyes , Scott Mitchell Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2004 11:13:46 -0600 User-Agent: KMail/1.5.2 References: <3FF31E4B.1070305@edgefocus.com> <20040101114640.GB675@tuatara.fishballoon.org> <20040101130752.V65501@zoraida.natserv.net> In-Reply-To: <20040101130752.V65501@zoraida.natserv.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200401021113.46323.jbacon@mcw.edu> cc: Sean Hafeez cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What do you use? 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: Fri, 02 Jan 2004 17:14:09 -0000 On Thursday 01 January 2004 07:09 am, Francisco Reyes wrote: > On Thu, 1 Jan 2004, Scott Mitchell wrote: > > As for RAID, we use Vinum, but only because I inherited a bunch of > > machines with hot-swap SCSI bays and no hardware RAID. It works well, > > once you have it set up, and I've even managed to swap out failed drives > > without a reboot > > > > :-) I'll definitely investigate the 3ware cards when I need to build a > > : new > > > > RAID server, though. > > But wouldn't a 3ware RAID be slower than an SCSI setup? Unless your > current setup is using old SCSI disks. Also how is the load? Lots of > simultaneous use or just many quick/small access (ie people using > documents/spreadsheets). Well, I'm in a position to provide some comparison data with not-too-many variables, so I felt obliged to run a quick benchmark. The program writes a large file (large enough to overwhelm any memory buffering) using low-level I/O, does an fsync() before closing, and then tests random seek and sequential read on the same file. I watched the system load using top during the benchmark and took a snapshot near the beginning and end of the write cycle. ~~~~~ 3ware Escalade IDE 560gig RAID-5 (8 x 80G barracuda disks): Writing 1677721600 byte test file... Done. Time = 58.433367 Performing 1000 random seeks and reads... Done. Time = 0.235705 Performing sequential read... Done. Time = 7.303429 CPU states: 0.8% user, 0.0% nice, 17.1% system, 0.0% interrupt, 82.2% idle Mem: 68M Active, 609M Inact, 279M Wired, 89M Cache, 112M Buf, 960M Free Swap: 4081M Total, 240K Used, 4081M Free CPU states: 0.4% user, 0.0% nice, 13.2% system, 0.0% interrupt, 86.4% idle Mem: 68M Active, 1390M Inact, 279M Wired, 88M Cache, 112M Buf, 180M Free Swap: 4081M Total, 240K Used, 4081M Free ~~~~~ ICP Vortex SCA 240gig RAID-5 (4 x 72 gig cheetah SCA disks): Writing 1677721600 byte test file... Done. Time = 53.667167 Performing 1000 random seeks and reads... Done. Time = 0.220799 Performing sequential read... Done. Time = 5.114555 CPU states: 0.4% user, 0.0% nice, 9.6% system, 1.0% interrupt, 89.1% idle Mem: 52M Active, 401M Inact, 274M Wired, 77M Cache, 112M Buf, 1201M Free Swap: 4081M Total, 248K Used, 4081M Free CPU states: 0.4% user, 0.0% nice, 25.1% system, 1.9% interrupt, 72.6% idle Mem: 52M Active, 1601M Inact, 276M Wired, 74M Cache, 112M Buf, 3228K Free Swap: 4081M Total, 248K Used, 4081M Free Both systems are running 5.1-RELEASE, with 2 gig RAM. The 3ware machine has a faster CPU (Athlon 1.6Ghz) than the ICP (dual Pentium 850), but this shouldn't be significant for raw I/O at these CPU speeds. The CPU usage is lower on the ICP system (remember that it has a slower CPU when comparing the CPU loads). CPU use consistently went up toward the end of the write cycle on the ICP system, but stayed flat on the 3ware. I noticed a drastic reduction of CPU load on the 3ware system when we went from 4.5-RELEASE to 4.6-RELEASE CPU load has never been a problem on either server. JB