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RE: Please Help - SCSI RAID device very slow

daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Matthew Clark)
Wed Oct 27 17:14:05 1999

Reply-To: <m.r.clark@btinternet.com>
From:   "Matthew Clark" <m.r.clark@btinternet.com>
To:     "linux-scsi" <linux-scsi@vger.rutgers.edu>,
        "linux-raid" <linux-raid@vger.rutgers.edu>,
        "Scott Marlowe" <smarlowe@ihs.com>
Date:   Wed, 27 Oct 1999 22:05:52 +0100
Message-ID: <005c01bf20bf$0d916ce0$0100a8c0@netdespatch.co.uk>
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In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.04.9910271417050.7263-100000@css120.ihs.com>

Thanks for replying...

> The AMI MegaRAIDs I've worked with (the 428) had an Intel i960 RISC
> processor integrated onto the megaraid card, along with several
> SymBIOS 8xx
> series SCSI controller chips.  The i960 generates parity data and controls
> the RAID arrays, while the Symbios chips interface to the HDs
> under control
> of the i960.

This is what someone else has mentioned .. so the i960 is actually
controlling the onboard Symbios controllers...

>
> The newer MegaRAID cards can now "hijack" your other Symbios based
> controllers and make them part of the "collective" that is the megaraid.
>

Yikes - That sounds unplesant! Fortunately my other controller is an adaptec
U2W (aic7xxx)


> How slow is too slow?  What numbers do you get from hdparm -tT?

Well .. hdparm -tT isn't "so" bad - here's the output....

#hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   64 MB in  0.61 seconds =104.92 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  32 MB in  1.50 seconds =21.33 MB/sec

(are 32 & 64 meg enough for these tests??)

it's writing that's the BIG problem - check out this output from bonnie..

              -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential
Input-- --Random--
              -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per
Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
Machine    MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec
%CPU
       1* 300   446  7.0   447  1.7  2440  4.9  4926 61.4 26823 24.6 1047.2
14.1

:-(

> No, the MegaRAID is what it should be talking to.  The Symbios controllers
> are now subsystems to the MegaRAID.

Right - well I'm glad you said that.. that was confusing the hell out of me!
Both you and Gerard Roudier have confirmed that now..

I never heard of the i960 controlling controllers like that.. mind you I
never claimed to be a hardware guru :-)

Regards,

Matthew Clark.


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