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Date:      Mon, 20 Mar 2006 11:50:09 -0800
From:      "Jin Guojun [VFFS]" <g_jin@lbl.gov>
To:        OxY <oxy@field.hu>
Cc:        freebsd-performance@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: packet drop with intel gigabit / marwell gigabit
Message-ID:  <441F0771.6030807@lbl.gov>
In-Reply-To: <000601c64c08$2a7b4990$0201a8c0@oxy>
References:  <000a01c64a81$45eb6850$0201a8c0@oxy>	<441BF838.1080600@mac.com><000601c64a87$51d7dee0$0201a8c0@oxy>	<441BFF26.90807@mac.com>	<000e01c64a8f$1b2bec80$0201a8c0@oxy> <441CAA8D.3020308@lbl.gov>	<000401c64b33$7561d940$0201a8c0@oxy> <441D3698.10300@lbl.gov> <000601c64b44$db8dcb00$0201a8c0@oxy> <441E1BF1.6050205@lbl.gov> <000601c64c08$2a7b4990$0201a8c0@oxy>

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OxY wrote:

>
> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Jin Guojun [VFFS]" <g_jin@lbl.gov>
> To: "OxY" <oxy@field.hu>
> Cc: <freebsd-performance@freebsd.org>
> Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 4:05 AM
> Subject: Re: packet drop with intel gigabit / marwell gigabit
>
>>>> ....
>>>> First let's clear the notation -- Is 30MB/s (MBytes/s) = 240Mb/s 
>>>> (Mbit/s) or MB/s means Mbits/s
>>>> If  MB/s is MBytes/s and you also write this amount data to a disk, 
>>>> plus other traffic on fxp0 to disk too,
>>>> then your problem may be bonded by memory bandwidth because CPU 
>>>> utilization is low:
>>>>    (240 + 24~32) x 2 is about 535 Mbit/s (some chipset/motherboard 
>>>> has low memory BW for AMD)
>>>> If this is true, then this no thing you can tune. What does the 
>>>> chipset (Motherboard) this machine have?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> 30MB/s is Megabytes/sec, currently i have 18-20MB/s peak and 15MB/s 
>>> avg.
>>> it's not 535Mbit/s, because i only download it to my machine, no 
>>> upload.
>>> disks are different from apache disks, these disks have own 
>>> controller in one pci slot.
>>> the packet drop is 5-7% at 200Mbit iperf test, 100Mbit drop is 
>>> around zero.
>>> i have <ASUS A7V8X> on motherboard which has VIA KT400 northbridge
>>> http://uk.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=226&l1=3&l2=13&l3=62 
>>>
>>
>>
>> Yes, this is one of problem chipset. I bought one about 3 years ago.
>> After one day testing, I returned it for changing a A7V600 (VIA KT600 
>> chipset),
>> which is 30% more memory bandwidth than KT400. A7V600 can only 
>> receive max
>> 604 Mb/s TCP, so You can imagine what the KT400 can do :-)
>> I do not have a record (because it is too bad), but taking minimum 
>> 25% off,
>> it probably about 420-430 Mb/s (50MB/s). Now you can do the math when 
>> the
>> machine also writing data to a disk (assume disk a fast enough). I 
>> would expect
>> 2/3 of 430 Mb/s, which is about 280~290 Mb/s (35 MB/s).
>> If you experiment these numbers, you are at there. No improvement you 
>> can make
>> further.
>
>
> i have doubts, because when i have 3-4MB/s traffic on fxp0 then em0 peak
> is 18MB/s, but when fxp0 is almost idle, have 500kB/s traffic, then 
> em0 can only
> do 20MB/s..

Since you did not get anything better than 35MB/s, then, what is your 
doubt --
    the maximum I/O A7V8X can do?

The 35 MB/s is the theoretical ceiling based on 2100+ CPU. 2000+ will be 
slower.
In previous email, you mentioned you had 240 Mb/s (30 MB/s) on em0 with some
traffic on fxp0, it is pretty much close to your hardware physical 
limitation.
Forget drop in this figure, because this demonstrated how much hardware 
can do,
rather than lossless transmission.
Once you have determined the ceiling, you need to keep a margin for 
lossless Tx.
for other overhead, such as context switch, etc.
20 MB/s is not good enough for this board, you may expect 28-30 MB/s with
fine tuning. Unless you will be happy with 28 MB/s, it does not make 
sense to
waste time to try to bump I/O above 30 MB/s for your application if you have
another motherboard.
Again, this motherboard is designed for entertainment boxes not for network
 I/O based applications.

    -Jin



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