From owner-freebsd-performance@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Aug 12 17:38:40 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org 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 19E0716A4E5 for ; Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:38:40 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: from nf-out-0910.google.com (nf-out-0910.google.com [64.233.182.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E213243D45 for ; Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:38:38 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from nikolas.britton@gmail.com) Received: by nf-out-0910.google.com with SMTP id g2so1462193nfe for ; Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:38:37 -0700 (PDT) DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=beta; d=gmail.com; h=received:message-id:date:from:to:subject:cc:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:content-disposition:references; b=ZRDk1mi039WllKWm0Gy5AJl/qZWRoqg+n90c0EYJYZetV6W6bVhK9jovxDmjKFavhfJPf90Vjo+3PC3oWtwkNPs5IELmTR9WvEPsHq/neanTlfGVaCtMV3CYs0dRQLIqMeqSqCuW0nXdex7YSj6zH4Mh+wsEhVPFpqe1lX4ppSk= Received: by 10.78.164.13 with SMTP id m13mr2642014hue; Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Received: by 10.78.143.11 with HTTP; Sat, 12 Aug 2006 10:38:37 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 12:38:37 -0500 From: "Nikolas Britton" To: "Robert Watson" In-Reply-To: <20060812164039.T45647@fledge.watson.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline References: <20060812164039.T45647@fledge.watson.org> Cc: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org Subject: Re: VFS sysctl tuning X-BeenThere: freebsd-performance@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Performance/tuning List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Sat, 12 Aug 2006 17:38:40 -0000 On 8/12/06, Robert Watson wrote: > On Sat, 12 Aug 2006, Nikolas Britton wrote: > > > After reading man tuning it said to change vfs.hirunningspace to a larger > > value. What should I set it to? > > > > My RAID controller, an Areca ARC-1220, has a 256MB cache and each disk has > > 16MB of cache. > > > > What other vfs.* sysctls can I change? > > The default settings are "reasonable" for many common workloads. Further > tuning generally should be done in the context of a specific workload, since > tuning generally means trading off one type of performance or functionality > for another. Only by knowing the workload can we talk about how to trade off > what you need, and what you don't. > Thanks Robert. It's a general purpose server but It's primary duty is serving files via Samba / NFS over GigE to workstations that are faster then it. We are typically working with hundreds of (new) ~16MB files on any given day. It currently has a single dual-core Xeon 5030 and 1GB of system ram. I plan on upgrading it to dual dual-core Xeon 51xx and maxing out the ram if FreeBSD ever gets Xen dom0 support so we can consolidate server equipment... Anyhow... I decided to script out the task of finding the right setting for the hirunningspace sysctl: #!/bin/csh sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=1048576 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_18.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=2097152 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_19.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=4194304 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_20.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=8388608 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_21.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=16777216 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_22.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=33554432 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_23.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=67108864 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_24.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=134217728 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_25.xls sysctl vfs.hirunningspace=268435456 iozone -a -g 1g -b ~/arc1220_26.xls -- BSD Podcasts @: http://bsdtalk.blogspot.com/ http://freebsdforall.blogspot.com/