Re: ZFS with Linux: An Open Plea

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

 



On Mon, 16 Apr 2007, Diego Calleja wrote:

El Mon, 16 Apr 2007 17:46:50 +0200 (CEST), Tomasz Kłoczko <[email protected]> escribió:

also some other interestig numbers can be founnd on:
http://milek.blogspot.com/2006/08/hw-raid-vs-zfs-software-raid-part-ii.html

So software raid can be faster than HW raid. News at 11.

Of cources it can be true in most cases (probably for some more advanced RAID controlers). Few weeks ago I perform some basic test on Dell 2950 with 8x73GB SAS disk .. just as for kill time (waiting for access to some bigger box ;). This small iron box have inside RAID controller (Dell uses in this box LSI Logic SAS MegaRAID based ctrl). Anykind combinations on controler level RAID was slower than using this as plain JBOD with LVM or MD+LVM. Diffrence between HW and soft RAID was not so big (1-6% depending on configuration) but allways HW produces worser results (don't ask me why). Finaly I decide using this disk as four RAID1 luns only because under Linux I can't read each phisical disk SMART data and protecting this by RAID on controller level and collecting SNMP traps from DRAC card was kind of worakaround for this (in my case it will be better constanlty monitor disk healt and collesting some SMART data for observe trends on for example zabbix graphs for try predict some faults using triggers). On top of this was configured diffrent types of volumes on LVM level (some with stripping some without, some with bigger some with smaller chunk size).

But .. in case ZFS diffrences can be better visable.
Q: why ?
A: because most of HW RAID controlers (nevermind is it small/simple internal HW controler for DAS sotorage or advances in storage processor in dedicated FC array) are _optimized_ for classic FS workloads but .. ZFS uses bunch of devices in completly diffrent way/characteristics. If you will see flashing LEDs on box with disk first time configurad for classic RAID<any_level> (nevermind soft or hw) and on second time configured for ZFS you will see kind of organoleptic diffrence.
And yes .. ZFS may be kind of problem for some HW vendors ;)

kloczek
--
-----------------------------------------------------------
*Ludzie nie mają problemów, tylko sobie sami je stwarzają*
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tomasz Kłoczko, sys adm @zie.pg.gda.pl|*e-mail: [email protected]*

[Index of Archives]     [Kernel Newbies]     [Netfilter]     [Bugtraq]     [Photo]     [Stuff]     [Gimp]     [Yosemite News]     [MIPS Linux]     [ARM Linux]     [Linux Security]     [Linux RAID]     [Video 4 Linux]     [Linux for the blind]     [Linux Resources]
  Powered by Linux