Just got a new dual scsi xeon server. Wanted to test out the HD speeds:

hdparm -tT /dev/sda1
/dev/sda1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.27 seconds =474.93 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.73 seconds = 37.07 MB/sec

hdparm -tT /dev/sda2

/dev/sda2:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.27 seconds =474.93 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 0.95 seconds = 67.56 MB/sec

Nice speed on the secondary drive. What strikes me as odd is that the drives, which should be identical, are not getting the same speeds. Anyone else with a dual xeon have similar results?

I've done testing before between SCSI and IDE and the competing SCSI technology always scores slight lower benchmarks, perhaps real world performance with multiple file access reading and writing is different, anyway, these test continue the trend,

This is a Dual XEON SCSI 73 Gig (yes I noticed the performance diff between the 2 drives and I would like to know why also)



/dev/sda1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.29 seconds =439.87 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.80 seconds = 35.46 MB/sec
root@secure [~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sda2

/dev/sda2:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.28 seconds =455.14 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 0.95 seconds = 67.15 MB/sec



DUAL XEON IDE (120 Gig)


/dev/hda1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.29 seconds =441.38 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.39 seconds = 46.04 MB/sec
[root@secure root]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda2

/dev/hda2:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.29 seconds =441.38 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.37 seconds = 46.72 MB/sec


While most are whining for SCSI drives ... i'de be happier with 2 x 120 Gig drives with 2 Gig of RAM. There is no way a reasonably loaded server would come close to bottlenecking IDE or SCSI, if it does increase your RAM as much as possible.

ok I eat my words, these SCSI drives are benchmarking faster than the 120 Gig IDE drives. I was testing the wrong partition,


/dev/sda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.28 seconds =458.32 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 0.99 seconds = 64.76 MB/sec
root@secure [~]# hdparm -tT /dev/sdb1

/dev/sdb1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.27 seconds =468.14 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 0.96 seconds = 66.47 MB/sec



Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 ext3 65G 1.8G 60G 3% /
/dev/sda1 ext3 99M 14M 79M 15% /boot
none tmpfs 503M 0 503M 0% /dev/shm
/dev/sdb1 ext2 67G 556k 63G 1% /home2

Mine is as slow as a dog when it comes to buffered disk reads:

What can be done to speed this up?

Update: I've disabled the Hyper Threading, and it's already better:

I've had a Dual Xeon w/RAID5 for several months now, but have hardly used it because of the slow performance problems I've had all along with it.

My load is way too high. As soon as I start sending some http traffic to it (about 1Mbps worth), with only static html and jpgs, the load goes up to 1.0-2.0 with spikes every 10 minutes or so above 5.0.

I've been trying sooo many things in attempt to figure out why it's so slow. I recently found the threads about testing HDD throughputs using hdparm.

Here are my current readings;

admin@xeon [~]# df
Filesystem 1k-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda3 138741452 8282188 123411552 7% /
/dev/sda1 101089 24312 71558 26% /boot
none 515336 0 515336 0% /dev/shm
admin@xeon [~]#

root@xeon [/]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda3

/dev/sda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.27 seconds =474.07 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.61 seconds = 24.52 MB/sec
root@xeon [/]# hdparm -Tt /dev/sda1

/dev/sda1:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.27 seconds =474.07 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.70 seconds = 23.70 MB/sec
root@xeon [/]#



Can someone else who has a Dual Xeon w/RAID5 please post what their hdparm results look like for comparison?

Thanks.

Here is what we have on 4 different machines, seem like shouldn't rely on hdparm to measure performance?

DUAL XEON - SCSI 73GB
/dev/sda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.33 seconds =387.81 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 4.09 seconds = 15.66 MB/sec

DUAL XEON - RAID1 73GB
/dev/sda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 2068 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1034.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 46 MB in 3.05 seconds = 15.08 MB/sec

SCSI 73GB
/dev/sda2:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1344 MB in 2.00 seconds = 672.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 166 MB in 3.00 seconds = 55.33 MB/sec

IDE 80GB
/dev/hda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1440 MB in 2.00 seconds = 720.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 162 MB in 3.00 seconds = 54.00 MB/sec

IDE 80GB
/dev/hda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1448 MB in 2.00 seconds = 724.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 150 MB in 3.01 seconds = 49.83 MB/sec

mine is not Xeon !!! but...

/dev/hde3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.58 seconds =222.17 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.60 seconds = 40.01 MB/sec

is this normal for a p3 1 ghz 40 gig HD !

i've got a new p4 2.4 (2) 80 gig hd


[root@secure root]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda3

/dev/hda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1832 MB in 2.00 seconds = 916.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 78 MB in 3.03 seconds = 25.74 MB/sec

i found the "Timing buffered disk reads" a little slow !!!

someone can tell me if it's a good speed !??

Try upgrading to the latest rhel kernel. As is noted in this problem there was a bug in the redhat kernel that caused awful preformance for scsi drives:

http://forum.ev1servers.net/showthread.php...&threadid=42017

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