[Beowulf] Re: OT: LTO Ultrium (3) throughput?

[Steve Cousins]

On Wed, 2 Jul 2008, David Mathog wrote:

> Rats.
>
> I wonder what the difference is now? If you don't already have it,
> please grab a copy of Exabyte's ltoTool from here:
>
> http://www.exabyte.com/support/online/downloads/downloads.cfm?did=1344&prod_id=581
>
> % /usr/local/src/ltotool/ltoTool -C 1 /dev/nst0
> ltoTool V4.63  --  Copyright (c) 1996-2006, Exabyte Corp.
>
> Tape Drive identified as LTO3(HP)
> Enabling compression...OK
>
> Done
>
> % /usr/local/src/ltotool/ltoTool -i /dev/nst0
> ltoTool V4.63  --  Copyright (c) 1996-2006, Exabyte Corp.
>
> Tape Drive identified as LTO3(HP)
> /dev/nst0 - Vendor    : HP
> /dev/nst0 - Product ID: Ultrium 3-SCSI
> /dev/nst0 - Firmware  : D21D
> /dev/nst0 - Serialnum : HU10708TGG


Hi David,

I get:

ltoTool V4.63  --  Copyright (c) 1996-2006, Exabyte Corp.

Tape Drive identified as LTO3(HP)
/dev/nst0 - Vendor    : HP
/dev/nst0 - Product ID: Ultrium 3-SCSI
/dev/nst0 - Firmware  : G24H
/dev/nst0 - Serialnum : HU105278YC

So, based on the serial number it looks like yours is newer than mine but 
mine possibly has a newer firmware.  It's hard to tell though since there 
are probably different firmwares depending on what vendor/library it is 
in.

For the other information I have:

ulimit: unlimited

sh-3.1# uname -a Linux triton 2.6.20-1.2320.fc5.asl.1 #1 SMP Thu Aug 9 
13:21:16 EDT 2007 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

(yes it is an old distribution (FC5) and kernel but it is stable. uptime 
of 295 days until boot drive had a problem this week and I had to switch 
it out)

dmesg:
scsi4 : ioc0: LSI53C1030, FwRev=01030a00h, Ports=1, MaxQ=222, IRQ=28
scsi 4:0:1:0: Sequential-Access HP       Ultrium 3-SCSI   G24H PQ: 0 ANSI: 3
  target4:0:1: FAST-160 WIDE SCSI 320.0 MB/s DT IU RTI PCOMP (6.25 ns, offset 64)
scsi 4:0:6:0: Medium Changer    OVERLAND NEO Series       0507 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
  target4:0:6: FAST-10 WIDE SCSI 20.0 MB/s ST (100 ns, offset 15)
scsi5 : ioc1: LSI53C1030, FwRev=01030a00h, Ports=1, MaxQ=222, IRQ=29

It is a dual Opteron 252 machine with 4GB of RAM and an LSI PCI-X two 
channel controller.

So we are both running with 2.6 Ghz Opterons but you have twice as many 
cores and probably higher bandwidth. My motherboard is a Tyan S2882 I 
believe.

dd --version shows:

dd (coreutils) 5.97
Copyright (C) 2006 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
This is free software.  You may redistribute copies of it under the terms 
of
the GNU General Public License <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>.
There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.

Written by Paul Rubin, David MacKenzie, and Stuart Kemp.


What happens if you turn off CTQ. I don't think CTQ will get you anything 
on a tape drive. Am I mistaken?


Steve






> % dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nst0 bs=512k count=10k
> 10240+0 records in
> 10240+0 records out
> 5368709120 bytes (5.4 GB) copied, 38.6474 s, 139 MB/s
>
> % /usr/local/src/ltotool/ltoTool -C 0 /dev/nst0
> ltoTool V4.63  --  Copyright (c) 1996-2006, Exabyte Corp.
>
> Tape Drive identified as LTO3(HP)
> Disabling compression...OK
>
> Done
> % dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/nst0 bs=512k count=10k
> 10240+0 records in
> 10240+0 records out
> 5368709120 bytes (5.4 GB) copied, 91.9329 s, 58.4 MB/s
>
> Done
>
>
> So mine is not as fast as yours in the exact same test.  HP's LTT
> tool shows an LTO 3 cartridge in the drive.  (Does this drive even
> work with an LTO 2 or LTO 4?)
>
> % ulimit
> unlimited
> % uname -a
> 2.6.24-19-generic #1 SMP Wed Jun 4 15:10:52 UTC 2008 x86_64 GNU/Linux
> % cat /etc/issue
> Ubuntu 8.04 \n \l
>
> The system has 24 GB of RAM, dual Opteron 2218, and no cpufreq
> adjustment running (the BIOS on this one does not support power
> adjustment).  The relevant SCSI messages from the last boot
> in /var/log/messages are:
>
> scsi6 : Adaptec AIC79XX PCI-X SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 3.0
> 	<Adaptec 29320LPE PCIe Ultra320 SCSI adapter>
> 	aic7901: Ultra320 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7,PCI-X 101-133Mhz, 512 SCBs
> scsi 6:0:4:0: Sequential-Access HP	 Ultrium 3-SCSI   D21D PQ: 0 ANSI: 3
> target6:0:4: asynchronous
> scsi6:A:4:0: Tagged Queuing enabled.  Depth 32
> target6:0:4: Beginning Domain Validation
> target6:0:4: wide asynchronous
> target6:0:4: FAST-160 WIDE SCSI 320.0 MB/s DT IU RTI PCOMP (6.25 ns,
> offset 64)
> target6:0:4: Domain Validation skipping write tests
> target6:0:4: Ending Domain Validation
>
> The module driving the Adaptec is "aic79xx", apparently with no
> special options configured anywhere for when it loads.
>
> Not sure which kernel parameters are relevant (if any).
>
> This is really unlikely to be relevant, but...
>
> % dd --version
> dd (coreutils) 6.10
> Copyright (etc.)
> % ldd `which dd`
> 	linux-vdso.so.1 =>  (0x00007fff08bfe000)
> 	librt.so.1 => /lib/librt.so.1 (0x00007fdd00779000)
> 	libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007fdd00417000)
> 	libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fdd001fb000)
> 	/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fdd00982000)
>
> Thanks,
>
> David Mathog
> mathog at caltech.edu
> Manager, Sequence Analysis Facility, Biology Division, Caltech
>