From owner-freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Jun 27 15:11:14 2008 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 717A41065690 for ; Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:11:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from pd2mo2so.prod.shaw.ca (idcmail-mo1so.shaw.ca [24.71.223.10]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 583518FC25 for ; Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:11:14 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from soralx@cydem.org) Received: from pd2mr6so.prod.shaw.ca (pd2mr6so-qfe3.prod.shaw.ca [10.0.141.9]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0K34004NHNG3P9D0@l-daemon> for freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org; Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:09:39 -0600 (MDT) Received: from pn2ml10so.prod.shaw.ca ([10.0.121.80]) by pd2mr6so.prod.shaw.ca (Sun Java System Messaging Server 6.2-7.05 (built Sep 5 2006)) with ESMTP id <0K3400JRMNG1F330@pd2mr6so.prod.shaw.ca> for freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org; Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:09:38 -0600 (MDT) Received: from soralx ([24.87.3.133]) by l-daemon (Sun ONE Messaging Server 6.0 HotFix 1.01 (built Mar 15 2004)) with ESMTP id <0K3400HY8NG2MD00@l-daemon> for freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org; Fri, 27 Jun 2008 09:09:38 -0600 (MDT) Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 08:09:39 -0700 From: soralx@cydem.org In-reply-to: <20080627184216.m7nz0snpwso8c4k4@www.dannysplace.net> To: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Message-id: <20080627080939.23c29ea8@soralx> MIME-version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Claws Mail 3.3.1 (GTK+ 2.12.9; i386-portbld-freebsd7.0) Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit References: <486450DB.4000907@dannysplace.net> <20080627040545.GA21856@eos.sc1.parodius.com> <4864769C.4050002@dannysplace.net> <20080627012253.07e629e0@freen0de> <20080627184216.m7nz0snpwso8c4k4@www.dannysplace.net> Cc: fbsd@dannysplace.net Subject: Re: new server motherboard with SATA II X-BeenThere: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: General discussion of FreeBSD hardware List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2008 15:11:14 -0000 I wrote: > > How about something like this: > > http://cgi.ebay.ca/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330240176734 > > (PERC 5/i SAS RAID controller HBA, PCIe x8, 256MB RAM) -- $120 > > > > This should give you ~300-400 MB/s with your 5 drives. It might not work > > with your mainboard, though -- but there's a trick to isolate SMBus pins > > the card edge connector (search the Net). > > Definately has potential. Scratch that, the card's performance is super low, lower than the grass. I'm testing it right now with two 15k.4 Cheetahs in mirror RAID. Two simultaneous reads [0] give ~19MB/s each (the drives can do >90MB/s each). Looks like the drives are getting thrashed with seeks (i.e., it can't read from both simultaneously!). Write performance [1] is only 50MB/s for single thread, and 20MB/s for 2 threads. bonnie++ measures ~22MB/s for writes too; the other figures look respectable, though, and blogbench shows some all right results (I can redo benchmarks and copy the results later if anyone cares). Maybe it performs better in striped arrays. I remember seeing figures like 500MB/s on forums, but I guess they tested only one thread at a time. [0] `dd if=/dev/mfid0 bs=64k count=65535 &` `dd if=/dev/mfid0 bs=64k count=65535 skip=132768 &` [1] dd'ing to file[s] on UFS2 slice > I think I might first focus on a motherboard that has a well supported > IO chipset. If I can get over 200Mb accross the whole array then I'll > be happy. > > After that I will look at a decent quality raid card. > > -D [SorAlx] ridin' VS1400