Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Sat, 14 Sep 2002 19:50:42 -0500 (CDT)
From:      Sean Farley <sean-freebsd@farley.org>
To:        freebsd-stable@freebsd.org
Subject:   Slow I/O responsiveness with UDMA133
Message-ID:  <20020914194458.A271-100000@thor.farley.org>

next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
The hardware list seems quiet, so I thought I would try here as well.
My system:

FreeBSD thor.farley.org 4.7-PRERELEASE FreeBSD 4.7-PRERELEASE #4:
Sat Sep 14 14:29:53 CDT 2002
root@thor.farley.org:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/THOR  i386

I have a question.  After building a new system, I noticed that it was
less responsive when it came to I/O concerning the hard drive.  The
standard XFree86 source extraction would slow down anything else that
tried to access something off of the drive.  It could take at least
10-20 seconds for a login attempt from the console to prompt for the
password after I entered the user ID.

On my old system this was not the case.  It would slow down the system,
but it would be much more responsive.  In both cases the write cache was
disabled.  I have fiddled with the BIOS without success.

Would anyone be able to help me?  This is driving me nuts.  :)  With
write cache enabled it does perform better, but I would the new computer
to at least equal the old system without it enabled.

Here are some benchmarks on my computers.  I believe the sequential
output is the killer.  atacontrol does show the new system to be using
UDMA133.  Both drives are on a controller by themselves.


----------------------------------------------
New System
----------------------------------------------
Athlon XP 2100
Maxtor (76345MB <MAXTOR 6L080L4> [155114/16/63] at ata1-master UDMA133)
        7200 RPM

hw.ata.ata_dma: 1
hw.ata.wc: 0
hw.ata.tags: 0
hw.ata.atapi_dma: 0

Bonnie++ test (w/o write cache)
-------------------------------
Writing with putc()...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.02c       ------Sequential Output------
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite-
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP
System 1       256M 10757  10 10767   3 11188   4
                    --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
                    K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
                    67468  97 468575  99 12770  29
                    ------Sequential Create------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16  9880  17 +++++ +++ +++++ +++
                    --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
                     /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                    +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++


----------------------------------------------
Old System
----------------------------------------------
PIII 450
Seagate (27199MB <ST328040A> [55262/16/63] at ata0-master UDMA33)
        5400RPM

hw.ata.ata_dma: 1
hw.ata.wc: 0
hw.ata.tags: 0
hw.ata.atapi_dma: 0

Bonnie++ test
-------------
Writing with putc()...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.02c       ------Sequential Output------
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite-
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP
System 2       256M 16246  89 16052  24  7069  14
                    --Sequential Input- --Random-
                    -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
                    K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
                    14597  94 17455  14 462.2   3
                    ------Sequential Create------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16  5081  46 +++++ +++ 13559  95
                    --------Random Create--------
                    -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
                    /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                    8218  68 +++++ +++ 13176  94


Thank you,

Sean
-----------------------
sean-freebsd@farley.org
PGP key:  http://www.farley.org/~sean/pgp.key


To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20020914194458.A271-100000>