From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Dec 13 01:14:25 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id B8200B2A for ; Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:14:25 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from zbeeble@gmail.com) Received: from mail-lb0-f182.google.com (mail-lb0-f182.google.com [209.85.217.182]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3650D8FC16 for ; Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:14:24 +0000 (UTC) Received: by mail-lb0-f182.google.com with SMTP id go10so1281873lbb.13 for ; Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:14:23 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; bh=Jv9cV9+79eibADQZR2lh5DlO5HvnFXrtbqh2t+aogoA=; b=0rSCmbI1WH2PyQMcU8bKxK5TOOOXY+GrlsMRuQ3pvN1uN8AYpXRCNIyNH4Yhua2cKZ coHybqOyXrjcN2u5qJy8/OZBfWnJtI78rMdzqQvxLBSqH0ug/WG/7q6HLoZTxbDyeFfJ ocTB19GhsQEoGNZKrQhh++aUS4+DyKtwFxEWtRxOeFtNbLTaEsxQl10a/C+3Xa+QceFk KmbUah1q2lGBPNmyv9daf9qITGRiHaqkl1dSveiv2oz+xkIh19d4z5wypq7y8rbr1Qx0 pTnRS8EcJ+GEVzOWE7ZqZjj0ttHEQwUuq4XVwNwJG+nSiPd2Yv46QkO9NQekPSzeiduz OwDQ== MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.112.37.40 with SMTP id v8mr159694lbj.112.1355361263786; Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:14:23 -0800 (PST) Received: by 10.112.61.33 with HTTP; Wed, 12 Dec 2012 17:14:23 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: References: Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 20:14:23 -0500 Message-ID: Subject: Re: iSCSI vs. SMB with ZFS. From: Zaphod Beeblebrox To: Wojciech Puchar Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Cc: FreeBSD Hackers X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 13 Dec 2012 01:14:25 -0000 On Wed, Dec 12, 2012 at 5:16 PM, Wojciech Puchar wrote: >> about the same as the local disk for some operations --- faster for >> some, slower for others. The workstation has 12G of memory and it's >> my perception that iSCSI is heavily cached and that this enhances it's > any REAL test means doing something that will not fit in cache. That's plainly not true at all on it's face. It depends on what you're testing. In this particular test, I'm looking at the performance of the components on a singular common task --- that of running a game. It's common to run a game more than once and it's common to move from area to area in the game loading, unloading and reloading the same data. My test is a valid comparison of the two modes of loading the game ... from iSCSI and from SMB. You cold criticize me for several things --- I only tested two games or I have unrealistically large and powerful hardware, but really... consider what you are testing before you pontificate on test design. And even in the case where you want to look at the "enterprise" performance of a system, knowing both the cache performance and the disk performance is better than only knowing one or other. Throughput is a combination of these features. Pure disk performance serves as a lower bound, but cache performance (especially on some of the ZFS systems people are creating these days ... with 100's of gigs of RAM) is an equally valid statistic and optimization.