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Re: measuring RAID arrays performances



On Sat, 25 May 2013 18:32:59 -0500
Stan Hoeppner <stan@hardwarefreak.com> wrote:

Hi Stan,

> > May be I am doing something wrong.
> 
> Yes, you are.  You're using only 2 disk drives.  The md/RAID10 module
> with two drives will perform nearly identical to RAID1.
> 
> Adding insult to injury you are using 6GB partitions in your testing
> setup.  The "layouts" of md/RAID10 are only of benefit when you use the
> entire disk capacity, or a very large portion of it.  These layouts
> obtain some advantage be changing the behavior of the disk head and thus
> read latency.  With a 6GB partition on a 1/2TB disk drive, the heads
> will never travel outside of a single track.
> 

OK.  Thank's for your mail and sorry to make you loosing your time reading mine.
One precision: english is NOT my mother tongue.
It is difficult for me to know if you are cool or if you are kidding me.

So, apparently, I have to read a lot of doc'.  Because launching a massive read on the same devices did not give the same result when I took a look at <iostat -k 3> output:

direct read on /dev/sdc5
Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
sdc               9,54      4347,36        34,94   16514421     132725
sdc               0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
sdc               0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
sdc             236,33    117522,67         0,00     352568          0
sdc             239,67    117616,00         0,00     352848          0
sdc             233,00    114457,33         0,00     343372          0
sdc             228,00    112152,00         0,00     336456          0
sdc             220,33    108226,67         0,00     324680          0
sdc             215,00    105750,67         0,00     317252          0
sdc             205,00    100630,67         0,00     301892          0
sdc             191,33     94057,33         0,00     282172          0
sdc             187,33     91925,33         0,00     275776          0
sdc             176,67     86888,00         0,00     260664          0
sdc             162,00     79633,33         0,00     238900          0
sdc             148,33     72890,67         0,00     218672          0
sdc             114,00     44477,33         0,00     133432          0
sdc              70,33       281,33         0,00        844          0
sdc              72,67       290,67         0,00        872          0
sdc              70,00       280,00         0,00        840          0
sdc              70,67       282,67         0,00        848          0
sdc              26,00       104,00         0,00        312          0
sdc               0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0


mdadm RAID1 (/dev/sdc5 + /dev/sdd5 - 6Gb partitions)
Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
md99              6,51       776,53         0,00    3899548          0
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
md99            325,00     40222,67         0,00     120668          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            943,67    115697,33         0,00     347092          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            943,67    115697,33         0,00     347092          0
md99            993,33    121786,67         0,00     365360          0
md99            184,67      6629,33         0,00      19888          0
md99            138,67       554,67         0,00       1664          0
md99             59,67       238,67         0,00        716          0

mdadm RAID10,f2 (/dev/sdc5 + /dev/sdd5 - 6Gb partitions)
Device:            tps    kB_read/s    kB_wrtn/s    kB_read    kB_wrtn
md99             55,04      3872,47        35,97   14288808     132712
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0
md99           1756,67    149640,00         0,00     448920          0
md99           2578,33    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2442,33    207912,00         0,00     623736          0
md99           2578,33    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2578,00    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2578,33    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2578,00    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2578,33    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2713,67    231013,33         0,00     693040          0
md99           2578,00    219462,67         0,00     658388          0
md99           2557,33    217664,00         0,00     652992          0
md99            152,00       608,00         0,00       1824          0
md99            154,33       617,33         0,00       1852          0
md99             27,00       108,00         0,00        324          0
md99             75,86      5642,46        35,12   21320212     132712
md99              0,00         0,00         0,00          0          0

Is iostat output wrong ?
Are these reading speed and volume wrong ?
Do I have to rely on this or not ?

> You really need to read and comprehend much more about md, or simply
> listen to an expert:
> 
> For two disks, use RAID1.  PERIOD.  End of story.  Screwing with
> anything else is a massive waste of your time.  If you have 3 or more
> disks, then you can worry about layouts.

Could you also send this advice to Debian people ?

Because the layout current in use inside the official Wheezy Debian installer for a 2 disks system is RAID10,f2.

It is may be time to open a bug for this.

> 
> -- 
> Stan
> 

Best regards,

-- 
Jean-Marc <jean-marc@6jf.be>


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