Raid 5 speed issues

skylizard

n00b
Joined
Apr 24, 2009
Messages
4
Hi there,
I'm putting together a new system with a Raid 5 based on Ubuntu 8.10 and was wondering about the speed when testing it with bonnie++

My system:
Mainboard: Asus M3A78-EM
CPU: Amd Athlon X2 BE-2400 EE
RAM: 2GB
Harddisks: 3X1000GB Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ

I set up the system as follows:
Raid 1 for /boot 500MB (uses all 3 HD's)
1.5 GB on every harddisk for swap
Raid 5 for the rest of the sytem and other data

When running bonnie++ on the raid 5 I get this:

lizardking@linuxtier:~$ bonnie++ -d /home/linuxshare -s 4g:256k -r 2g
Writing with putc()...done
Writing intelligently...done
Rewriting...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
start 'em...done...done...done...
Create files in sequential order...done.
Stat files in sequential order...done.
Delete files in sequential order...done.
Create files in random order...done.
Stat files in random order...done.
Delete files in random order...done.
Version 1.03c ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
-Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine Size:chnk K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP /sec %CP
linuxtier 4G:256k 40105 88 66121 39 35940 25 49970 95 99406 38 119.3 11
------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
-Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
files /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP /sec %CP
16 14100 88 +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++ +++++ +++
linuxtier,4G:256k,40105,88,66121,39,35940,25,49970,95,99406,38,119.3,11,16,14100,88,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++,+++++,+++

Seems to be slower than with a single harddrive or could it be correct?

Thanks
 
Since you are using on-board RAID, everything seems normal. If you had a separate hardware RAID card, it would be considerably faster.
 
Are you using RAID configured in the BIOS, or Linux's software RAID?
 
I'm using a software raid.
Especially for the read I expected more.
 
Last edited:
I agree, that does seem slow. What controller are you using for the disks?
 
I'm using the onboard SATA connectors of the Asus M3A78-EM, no raid controller. I think it uses an the AMD SB700 for the SATA connectors.
 
Solved!
The first time I built the raid during the installation by using the alternate ubuntu installer. That seemed to be the problem.
Now I set up the raid manually using mdadm and the results in bonnie++ are much higher.
Thanks for the replies.

skylizard
 
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