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Date:      Wed, 20 Jun 2001 01:09:10 -0700
From:      "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com>
To:        <rick@geckobot.com>, "'Erik Trulsson'" <ertr1013@student.uu.se>
Cc:        <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
Subject:   RE: Significant Performance Drop during 4.0-4.3 Upgrade
Message-ID:  <003a01c0f960$48e7c7a0$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
In-Reply-To: <000201c0f8b9$4ea26e40$04fea8c0@patches>

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I was just speculating that perhaps you were in PIO mode
before, and there is some hardware bug or other that is
affecting things.

Ted Mittelstaedt                      tedm@toybox.placo.com
Author of:          The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
Book website:         http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com


>-----Original Message-----
>From: Rick Moore [mailto:rick@geckobot.com]
>Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2001 5:14 AM
>To: 'Ted Mittelstaedt'; 'Erik Trulsson'
>Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>Subject: RE: Significant Performance Drop during 4.0-4.3 Upgrade
>
>
>Hi Ted!
>
>I am under the impression that I was running UDMA before, but I don't ever
>recall verifying it.  Sorry I don't have a more definitive answer.  Using
>sysctrl I've confirmed that I'm running UDMA now...
>
>Rick
>
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ted Mittelstaedt [mailto:tedm@toybox.placo.com]
>> Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 11:55 PM
>> To: rick@geckobot.com; Erik Trulsson
>> Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>> Subject: RE: Significant Performance Drop during 4.0-4.3 Upgrade
>>
>>
>> Just a question,
>>
>>   Were you running ULTRA DMA under 4.0 or were you running PIO
>> mode?
>>
>> Ted Mittelstaedt                      tedm@toybox.placo.com
>> Author of:          The FreeBSD Corporate Networker's Guide
>> Book website:         http://www.freebsd-corp-net-guide.com
>>
>>
>> >-----Original Message-----
>> >From: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>> >[mailto:owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG]On Behalf Of Rick
>> >Sent: Monday, June 18, 2001 4:43 PM
>> >To: Erik Trulsson
>> >Cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
>> >Subject: Re: Significant Performance Drop during 4.0-4.3 Upgrade
>> >
>> >
>> >Hi Erik-
>> >
>> >Thanks for responding so quickly!  Unless I did something wrong,
>> >that didn't
>> >seem to do the trick.  I sure thought it was going to work, though.
>> >
>> >I added the following line to /boot/defaults/loader.conf:
>> >
>> >hw.ata.wc="1"
>> >
>> >...and rebooted but the performance hasn't picked up to
>> where it was with
>> >FreeBSD 4.0.  It may have gone up some-- I haven't been tracking
>> >the numbers
>> >very closely.
>> >
>> >By coincidence, one of the three systems was upgraded to FreeBSD
>> >4.3 STABLE
>> >instead of RELEASE, and it too shows roughly the same
>> performance metrics.
>> >
>> >If I didn't do this right, please let me know.  Otherwise if
>> you or anyone
>> >has other thoughts, I'd be happy to give them a try.
>> >
>> >Rick
>> >
>> >BTW- I'm not sure it's worth mentioning, but I still don't see any
>> >of this in
>> >the 4.3 RELEASE notes...
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >On Monday 18 June 2001 14:07, Erik Trulsson wrote:
>> >> On Mon, Jun 18, 2001 at 01:44:23PM -0700, Rick wrote:
>> >> > Hi!
>> >> >
>> >> > I just upgraded 3 servers from 4.0 to 4.3 FreeBSD using
>> >sysinstall, and I
>> >> > noticed that some rm -r operations seemed a little slow after the
>> >> > upgrade.
>> >> >
>> >> > Coincidentally I've been working on an ISAM alternative
>> to B-tree so I
>> >> > have a bunch of performance benchmarks handy.  The results:
>> >> >
>> >> > Disk hits are *much* slower after the upgrade.  Many
>> times slower, in
>> >> > fact. I also had Berkley DB benchmarks that I was using
>> for comparison
>> >> > and they too were heavily impacted.
>> >> >
>> >> > For the life of me, I can't figure out what the heck happened!
>> >> > SOFTUPDATES were off before the upgrade and I didn't
>> change of the disk
>> >> > tuning.  I did tweak my kernel a bit, but nothing should
>> have had this
>> >> > effect-- I just removed a few things that weren't being
>> used like EISA
>> >> > and some network cards.  When I examine dmesg everything
>> still seems to
>> >> > be recognized as ULTRA DMA, etc.  I've tried putting
>> everything back in
>> >> > my kernel and I've try the GENERIC kernel with no improvements.
>> >> >
>> >> > I've looked through the release notes, etc., and couldn't find
>> >anythingd
>> >> > etailing this problem.  Did I miss something?  Am I just
>> extra lucky?
>> >>
>> >> Yes, you missed one small thing.  Write caching for IDE disks were
>> >> turned off by default in 4.3-RELEASE.  It has since been
>> turned back on
>> >> in 4.3-STABLE on since the performance hit was too big.
>> >> (The reason it was turned off is that if you have the write-cache
>> >> turned on can result in serious data-loss if you have a
>> power failure.)
>> >>
>> >> You can turn it back on by setting hw.ata.wc=1 from the loader.
>> >> See the manpages for ata(4) and loader(8) for more information.
>> >
>> >To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
>> >with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
>> >
>>
>>
>
>

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