Date: Fri, 6 Aug 1999 15:40:24 -0400 (EDT) From: "Shaun Q." <kb8rjy@m-net.arbornet.org> To: Aram Compeau <aram@tibco.com> Cc: Brian McGroarty <BMCGROARTY@high-voltage.com>, freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The $500 Performance Question Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.3.96.990806153431.23034A-100000@m-net.arbornet.org> In-Reply-To: <37AB3571.5E1745CD@tibco.com>
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One question for you, Brian - Have you tried the new ata driver in fbsd (versus the default wd0). I've noticed a HUGE i/o speed difference on my machine (AMD K6-2, Biostar M5ALA w/ALI UDMA PCI Controller, 128 mb ram). Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that this driver is what allows fbsd to use the udma features of your hard drive/controller. Also, you may want to try the SOFTUPDATES option. There's a slight speed increase with this option in regards to disk i/o on my machine. TTYL, and good luck! Shaun Qualheim On Fri, 6 Aug 1999, Aram Compeau wrote: > I'm sure you're correct in assuming that the compiles are disk I/O limited. > > I don't think this will come close to sliding under the $500 mark, or if you want > to risk it, but tying two SCSI HD's together at RAID lvl 0 is a nice disk I/O > speedup. :-) This has some rather obvious inherent risks involved with it... Not > to mention a hefty "opportunity cost" in replacing "already paid for" IDE disks > with SCSI disks... I think you could get 2 4.5GB IBM 9ES drives (DDRS-34560, I > think?) for something like $150 ea. plus the controller? So maybe a 9GB build > volume for $700 or so? Anyway, just guessing. I'll be trying a similar rig (dual > CPU, SCSI RAID lvl 0) myself shortly, and I'll report back the "make world -j 40" > time for reference. > > Barring such a solution, you might consider a slightly faster HD? There wasn't > enough detail below to discern, but perhaps one of those nice IBM UDMA disks with > very high areal densities and GMR heads *might* give you a performance boost? > > I believe if you compile in single user mode, you gain a slight performance boost > as well (that's free, of course! :-). > > Aram > > > > Brian McGroarty wrote: > > > I've got a PC used primarily for programming. Projects tend to be large (8-12 > > megs of C++ source), so build time is a concern. I'd like ideas on where the > > best place to sink $500 would be to boost performance. > > > > Relevant in the current configuration: > > > > o (2) Celeron 300a (on socket converters, overclocked to 500mhz) > > o Tyan Tiger 100 motherboard (Dual CPU) > > o 512mb 100mhz RAM > > > > EIDE controller: > > o 14 gig 7200 EIDE (/usr,/,swap) > > o 28 gig 7200 EIDE (/tobackup,/cvs) > > > > EIDE controller 1: > > o 14 gig 7200 EIDE (/home) > > o 2/8x CDRW/CD-ROM > > > > For a familiar benchmark, a FreeBSD 'make world -j 40' takes about an hour > > and ten minutes. This may be slewed against your ssytem by the inclusion of > > -O3 optimization. > > > > The CPUs realize a lot of idle time; upward of 60%. I expect then that I/O is > > my main bottleneck. > > > > The drives are Ultra-66 capable, but I don't believe FreeBSD supports this at > > current. Thus, I don't see a way to enhance what I've got. (I'm already > > enabling 32-bit and DMA on the controllers via flags). > > > > So what's my best bet? Is there a fast and economical SCSI-2 controller and > > drive I should try? Any supported IDE RAID controllers? Or is there an > > Ultra-66 controller FreeBSD merely sees as really fast EIDE? > > > > Or is this time being spent in the huge kernel lock? Would CAS2 capable RAM > > then perhaps speed the buffer transfers noticably and get the CPUs back to > > unmanaged portions more quickly? > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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