mfi driver performance

[matt]

On 09/10/12 05:38, Achim Patzner wrote:
> Hi!
>
> We’re testing a new Intel S2600GL-based server with their recommended RAID adapter ("Intel(R) Integrated RAID Module RMS25CB080”) which is identified as
>
> mfi0: <ThunderBolt> port 0x2000-0x20ff mem 0xd0c60000-0xd0c63fff,0xd0c00000-0xd0c3ffff irq 34 at device 0.0 on pci5
> mfi0: Using MSI
> mfi0: Megaraid SAS driver Ver 4.23 
> mfi0: MaxCmd = 3f0 MaxSgl = 46 state = b75003f0 
>
> or
>
> mfi0 at pci0:5:0:0:        class=0x010400 card=0x35138086 chip=0x005b1000 rev=0x03 hdr=0x00
>     vendor     = 'LSI Logic / Symbios Logic'
>     device     = 'MegaRAID SAS 2208 [Thunderbolt]'
>     class      = mass storage
>     subclass   = RAID
>
> and seems to be doing quite well.
>
> As long as it isn’t used…
>
> When the system is getting a bit more IO load it is getting close to unusable as soon as there are a few writes (independent of configuration, it is even sucking  as a glorified S-ATA controller). Equipping it with an older (unsupported) controller like an SRCSASRB
> (mfi0 at pci0:10:0:0:       class=0x010400 card=0x100a8086 chip=0x00601000 rev=0x04 hdr=0x00
>     vendor     = 'LSI Logic / Symbios Logic'
>     device     = 'MegaRAID SAS 1078'
>     class      = mass storage
>     subclass   = RAID) solves the problem but won’t make Intel’s support happy.
>
> Has anybody similar experiences with the mfi driver? Any good ideas besides running an unsupported configuration?
>
>
> Achim
>
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I just set up an IBM m1015 (aka LSI 9240lite aka Drake Skinny) with mfi.
Performance was excellent for mfisyspd volumes, as I compared using the
same hardware but with firmware (2108it.bin) that attaches under mps.
Bonnie++ results on random disks were very close if not identical
between mfi and mps. ZFS performance was also identical between a
mfisysd JBOD volume and a mps "da" raw volume. It was also quite clear
mfisyspd volumes are true sector-for-sector pass through devices.

However, I could not get smartctl to see an mfisyspd volume (it claimed
there was no such file...?) and so I flashed the controller back to mps
for now. A shame, because I really like the mfi driver better, and
mfiutil worked great (even to flash firmware updates).

Matt