[Beowulf] Question on hgh performance, low cost Fileserver

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Nov 22, 2005 at 03:58:25PM -0500, Andrew Piskorski wrote:

> > I have a HA NFS server in the rack (dual mini-ITX with a 300 GB 
> > drive each) which are kept in sync via DRBD. Bonnie++ said something
> > about 2-3 MByte/s, so mini-ITX are quite underpowered for the application.
> 
> That seems like awful disk performance.  But, why would that have

Oh, yes.

> anything to do per-se with is being a mini-ITX motherboard?  If its

The onboard NICs are 100 MBit/s (that would cap performance
at 8-9 MByte/s, as drbd uses just eth1), and the CPU quite underpowered.
Plus, there's NFS overhead. If I run bonnie++ locally (iozone seems de
rigeur now though) it reports

Version  1.03       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
boron            1G  5450  80 12239  11  9052  16  7291  95 41852  33 192.6   1
                    ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16   917  53 +++++ +++  1133  47   979  59 +++++ +++   851  43
boron,1G,5450,80,12239,11,9052,16,7291,95,41852,33,192.6,1,16,917,53,+++++,+++,1133,47,979,59,+++++,+++,851,43

> PCI and IDE chipsets are ok, and Linux recognizes them correctly, then
> the disk should work just as well as on a larger motherboard, right?
> Did you use the hdparm -i -I -tT options to check that Linux isn't
> putting the disk controller into the wrong mode?

Looks arguably sensible to me:

 Model=Maxtor 5A300J0, FwRev=RAM51VV0, SerialNo=A81ARWXE
 Config={ Fixed }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
 CurCHS=65535/1/63, CurSects=4128705, LBA=yes, LBAsects=268435455
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: (null): 

 * signifies the current active mode


ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       Maxtor 5A300J0                          
        Serial Number:      A81ARWXE            
        Firmware Revision:  RAM51VV0
Standards:
        Supported: 7 6 5 4 
        Likely used: 7
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   65535
        heads           16      1
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:    4128705
        LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
        LBA48  user addressable sectors:  585940320
        device size with M = 1024*1024:      286103 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:      300001 MBytes (300 GB)
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
        Queue depth: 1
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 0
        Advanced power management level: unknown setting (0x0000)
        Recommended acoustic management value: 192, current value: 254
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    NOP cmd
           *    READ BUFFER cmd
           *    WRITE BUFFER cmd
           *    Host Protected Area feature set
           *    Look-ahead
           *    Write cache
           *    Power Management feature set
           *    SMART feature set
           *    FLUSH CACHE EXT command
           *    Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command 
           *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set 
           *    48-bit Address feature set 
           *    Automatic Acoustic Management feature set 
                SET MAX security extension
                Advanced Power Management feature set
           *    DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
           *    SMART self-test 
           *    SMART error logging 
HW reset results:
        CBLID- above Vih
        Device num = 0 determined by CSEL
Checksum: correct
 Timing cached reads:   596 MB in  2.01 seconds = 295.97 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  100 MB in  3.01 seconds =  33.21 MB/sec


-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a>
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820            http://www.leitl.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE
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