chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) (11/09/90)
I have in my hot little hands two SCSI controllers - an Adaptec AHA-1542B
and a BusTek BT-542B. I've been trying to do some benchmark comparisons
of the two using the "bonnie" program. Both cards were tested in the
same system, all running with their default settings (5.0MB DMA, Sync
Negot disab, etc.). I was told the BusTek gives about 3X the performance
of the Adaptec. I'm not seeing this - I see 1X performance.
Numbers as follows:
-------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
Adaptec 100 116 94.3 305 47.8 165 28.1 112 98.2 321 26.0 11.4 14.9
Bustek 100 116 94.3 305 48.1 164 26.9 112 98.3 321 24.8 11.5 14.6
For reference, these were run on a 20MHz non-cacheing Micronics in single
user mode, 14MB main memory, Fujitsu M2248SA hard disk, and SCO ODT 1.0
(with no kernel tweaking).
My questions are twofold: (1) has anybody looked at the BusTek adapter
critically, and what results did you obtain, and (2) how useful is "bonnie"
for disk system benchmarking?
Right now, my guess is that either I was given marketing performance
numbers for the BusTek card rather than real performance numbers, or any
additional performance of this card is just wasted potential on this 20MHz
machine. Comments anyone?
--
Chip Rosenthal <chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Unicom Systems Development, 512-482-8260
Our motto is: We never say, "But it works with DOS."larry@nstar.uucp (Larry Snyder) (11/09/90)
chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes: >Right now, my guess is that either I was given marketing performance >numbers for the BusTek card rather than real performance numbers, or any >additional performance of this card is just wasted potential on this 20MHz >machine. Comments anyone? How about price difference? The 1542's are going for around $265 these days - how about the other controller? -- Larry Snyder, Northern Star Communications, Notre Dame, IN USA {larry@nstar, {uunet|backbone}!nstar!larry, larry%nstar@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu} backbone usenet newsfeeds available Public Access Unix Site (219) 289-0282 (5 high speed lines)
cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (11/09/90)
In article <1686@chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes: >I have in my hot little hands two SCSI controllers - an Adaptec AHA-1542B >and a BusTek BT-542B. I've been trying to do some benchmark comparisons >of the two using the "bonnie" program. Both cards were tested in the >same system, all running with their default settings (5.0MB DMA, Sync >Negot disab, etc.). I was told the BusTek gives about 3X the performance >of the Adaptec. I'm not seeing this - I see 1X performance. The bustek is supposed to be fully compatible with the Adaptec and should therefore have very similar performance numbers (as your test showed). If someone told you it has 3x better performance, they were comparing some other card to it. Maybe the bustek EISA to the Adaptec ISA or the bustek to a ST-506. -- Conor P. Cahill (703)430-9247 Virtual Technologies, Inc., uunet!virtech!cpcahil 46030 Manekin Plaza, Suite 160 Sterling, VA 22170
pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) (11/11/90)
On 9 Nov 90 04:09:11 GMT, chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) said: chip> I have in my hot little hands two SCSI controllers - an Adaptec chip> AHA-1542B and a BusTek BT-542B. I've been trying to do some chip> benchmark comparisons of the two using the "bonnie" program. chip> [ ... ] chip> I was told the BusTek gives about 3X the performance of chip> the Adaptec. I'm not seeing this - I see 1X performance. [ ... around 300KB/sec per block IO, read or write ... ] chip> For reference, these were run on SCO ODT 1.0 (with no kernel chip> tweaking). Ahem. SCO Unix uses a fast file system of some sort, but from the numbers you show I would guess that either the SCSI driver or the filesystem are not as efficient as they could. I have seen better numbers for the Adaptec than those you give. chip> how useful is "bonnie" for disk system benchmarking? Totally useless. "bonnie" tests for IO system performance -- the disk subsystem is only the back end of an IO system. It is difficult to abstract the performance of the disk subsystem from that of the whole IO system, and probably pointless. chip> Right now, my guess is that either I was given marketing performance chip> numbers for the BusTek card rather than real performance numbers, or any chip> additional performance of this card is just wasted potential on this 20MHz chip> machine. Unless your IO system sw is CPU bound (and this is quite difficult, even if not totally impossible), and your numbers show that doing block IO CPU intensity is 40-50%, CPU speed is not that important with an intelligent controller. Setting it up properly and having an efficient driver and filesystem implementation are far more important as limiting factors. -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de (Heiko Blume) (11/11/90)
chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes: >My questions are twofold: (1) has anybody looked at the BusTek adapter >critically, and what results did you obtain, and (2) how useful is "bonnie" >for disk system benchmarking? re (1): never heard of :-) re (2): well, it says it's for file*system* benchmarking, but hardware is a issue too, of course. here's what i get with ISC 2.2, 1542A and 638MB Imprimis: -------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 386/33 80 243 91.8 351 28.4 396 65.6 216 97.6 742 62.6 17.3 14.4 it should be noted that the throughput of data is influenced by DMA rate etc, but the (l)seeks/sec are not (unless you have a 3 second average seek drive :-) given three processes that seek on the same file. does someone know why this is so? -- Heiko Blume <-+-> src@scuzzy.in-berlin.de <-+-> (+49 30) 691 88 93 public source archive [HST V.42bis]: scuzzy Any ACU,f 38400 6919520 gin:--gin: nuucp sword: nuucp uucp scuzzy!/src/README /your/home