Adaptec 2230SLP RAID-5 slow on FreeBSD 5.4

[Tamouh H.]

Hi,

We're having trouble getting reasonable performance with an Adaptec 2230SLP (FreeBSD shows it as 2130S SCSI U320) and latest FreeBSD 5.4 snapshot using AAC drivers :

__FBSDID("$FreeBSD: src/sys/dev/aac/aac.c,v 1.101.2.5 

We're comparing diskinfo -t   data between SCSI U320 and another machine with SATA 150, and the results are surprising.

We're getting around 45MB/s on the 2130S , while on SATA we receive above 60MB/s.

I've checked everything (cables, drives, played with read/write cache enabled or disabled) but not with any significant results.

I've seen other posts as well complaining about slow performance with Adaptec 2100S series cards and FreeBSD 5.x .

Any experiences with these adapters ? Is this Adaptec issue or something with the AAC driver limiting its performance ? It is to the point where I can actually feel the server is running awfully slow when doing backups...etc

Below are some info about the card, the drives and tests results:

AAC0> controller details
Executing: controller details
Controller Information
----------------------
         Remote Computer: S
             Device Name: S
         Controller Type: No Info
             Access Mode: READ-WRITE
Controller Serial Number: Last Six Digits = 265763
         Number of Buses: 1
         Devices per Bus: 15
          Controller CPU: Unknown
    Controller CPU Speed: 200 Mhz
       Controller Memory: 256 Mbytes
           Battery State: Not Present

Component Revisions
-------------------
                CLI: 1.0-0 (Build #5263)
                API: 1.0-0 (Build #5263)
    Miniport Driver: 4.2-0 (Build #7348)
Controller Software: 4.2-0 (Build #7348)
    Controller BIOS: 4.2-0 (Build #7348)
Controller Firmware: (Build #7348)
Controller Hardware: 2.64

The drives are in RAID-5 setup

freebsd3# diskinfo -t /dev/aacd0s1f
/dev/aacd0s1f
        512             # sectorsize
        221978296320    # mediasize in bytes (207G)
        433551360       # mediasize in sectors
        26987           # Cylinders according to firmware.
        255             # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   4.196076 sec =   16.784 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   3.621842 sec =   14.487 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   5.971962 sec =   11.944 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   6.133371 sec =   15.333 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   6.284642 sec =   15.712 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   3.366757 sec =    1.644 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   3.225525 sec =    1.575 msec
Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   3.137279 sec =    32640 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   2.997041 sec =    34167 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   4.061875 sec =    25210 kbytes/sec

-- COMPARE THIS WITH SATA DRIVE in RAID-1:

freebsd1# diskinfo -t /dev/ar0s1g
/dev/ar0s1g
        512             # sectorsize
        135622916608    # mediasize in bytes (126G)
        264888509       # mediasize in sectors
        16488           # Cylinders according to firmware.
        255             # Heads according to firmware.
        63              # Sectors according to firmware.

Seek times:
        Full stroke:      250 iter in   1.494205 sec =    5.977 msec
        Half stroke:      250 iter in   1.417056 sec =    5.668 msec
        Quarter stroke:   500 iter in   2.862548 sec =    5.725 msec
        Short forward:    400 iter in   2.354758 sec =    5.887 msec
        Short backward:   400 iter in   2.300288 sec =    5.751 msec
        Seq outer:       2048 iter in   0.163812 sec =    0.080 msec
        Seq inner:       2048 iter in   0.177120 sec =    0.086 msec
Transfer rates:
        outside:       102400 kbytes in   1.401566 sec =    73061 kbytes/sec
        middle:        102400 kbytes in   1.664351 sec =    61525 kbytes/sec
        inside:        102400 kbytes in   2.861386 sec =    35787 kbytes/sec

Any input is much appreciated...

Thx,

Tamouh Hakmi