steinar@ifi.uio.no (Steinar Kj{rnsr|d) (12/11/90)
Recently there has been a number of requests in this and in other newsgroups on
the performance of different SCSI drives. The list below was compiled after
running a raw read benchmark called 'disktest' on different systems. The
raw read transfer rates always reflect raw read() calls with big block sizes,
i.e. far beyond 8K. However, the relative performance between the different
systems seem to be more or less the same when doing 8K transfers, although
the individual transfer rates are lower.
Bare in mind that this test resembles a one-user/one-process environment, and
that the read() operations bypasses the file system buffer cache. The purpose
of the test is to exercise the drive and the operation of the disk subsystem,
not the implementation of the file system nor the performance of the host cpu.
The results are more or less what could be expected and also in most cases
close to what the drive vendors use in their brochures etc. For the HP drive
this is not true -- HP claims that the drive should do synchronous transfers
at the same rate as for instance the Elite drive. Any experiences with the
HP drive confirming or not confirming this result will be welcome.
The benchmark was written by Craig Leres at Lawerence Berkeley Laboratory,
and can be ftp-ed from a number of places around the net (ifi.uio.no for
instance).
In the list below, some none SCSI disk subsystems are included for reference.
-------------------- DISKTEST BENCHMARK ----------------------
Raw read rate Disk subsystem
------------------------------------------------------------
2800.46 KB/sec Ciprico RAID-3 array, DS5000/200
2631.97 KB/sec SUN dual head IPI, SUN 4/490
2541.38 KB/sec Ciprico RAID-3 array, SUN 4/260
2448.86 KB/sec Seagate Elite, DS5000/200
2342.02 KB/sec Fujitsu M2382 ESMD, SUN 3/480
2290.18 KB/sec Fujitsu M2382 ESMD, SUN 3/280
2282.71 KB/sec Fujitsu M2392 ESMD, SUN 3/280
2222.83 KB/sec Fujitsu M2392 ESMD, Solbourne 5/801
2153.96 KB/sec Fujitsu M226S SCSI, DS5000/200
2099.24 KB/sec Seagate WREN VII, DS5000/200
2026.99 KB/sec DEC RZ57, DS5000/200
2008.00 KB/sec Seagate Elite, Sparcstation 1+
1684.85 KB/sec Seagate WREN Runner, Dolphin Triton-88
1217.46 KB/sec Fujitsu M2344, Sun 4/260
1200.25 KB/sec HP 97549T/P, DS5000/200
1116.03 KB/sec DEC RA90, Vaxserver 3600
1101.45 KB/sec DEC RZ56, DS5000/200
1090.29 KB/sec DEC RA82, Vaxserver 3600
1036.29 KB/sec DEC RZ55, DS5000/200
971.56 KB/sec DEC RF71, DS5400
904.24 KB/sec Unknown SCSI drive, AViiON 300
+==================================================================+
! !
! Steinar Kjaernsroed, !
! Dpt. of Informatics, !
! University of Oslo, !
! P.O.Box 1080, Blindern, !
! 0316, Oslo 3, !
! NORWAY !
! !
! Phone: 047+2+453460 (work), !
! Email: steinar@ifi.uio.no (Internet) !
! ..!mcsun!ifi!steinar (UUCP) !
! !
+==================================================================+