possible issues with Dell/Perc5 raid

Randy Schultz schulra at earlham.edu
Fri May 11 12:54:20 UTC 2007


Hi there,

We just purchased a Dell 860 with these specifics:
   - dual core pentium 915, 2.8 GHz, 800MHz FSB
   - 2x512 MB 533 MHz DDR2 RAM
   - Dell's SAS/SATA drive controller(which is actually an LSILogic)
   - their 5IR PCI-Express internal RAID controller
   - a pair of 250 GB SATA II's set up RAID 1

After installing 6.2-RELEASE on the system I noticed, while pulling the ports
collection off the CDROM, that the speed to the drives started out just fine
but long before the ports collection was installed the transfer rate was down
to ~35kB/s.  Huh.  So I started paying closer attention.  I installed a couple
of ports and every time there was anything but miniscule data being
transferred to/from disk the transfer rate bottomed out.  I installed the
blogbench port and it confirmed the I/O as tremendously sluggish.  I've
attached the output of the blogbench runs.  The first is from an old 700 MHz
pc, Acer M25C mobo, with 1 IDE drive just for comparison.  The second data set
is the new Dell.  I've also attached the output of dmesg.  Everything looks
fine except for the mpt lines.  Would those be telling of something amiss or
are they innocuous barks?

I understand that RAID 1 is not the fastest but I certainly expected it to be
faster than it is, esp. with hw RAID.  Are my expectations too high and this
is normal?

--
  Randy    (schulra at earlham.edu)      765.983.1283         <*>

Rain puts a hole in stone because of its constancy, not its force.
    - H. Joseph Gerber
-------------- next part --------------
kappia# /usr/local/bin/blogbench -d /var/tmp

Frequency = 10 secs
Scratch dir = [/var/tmp]
Spawning 3 writers...
Spawning 1 rewriters...
Spawning 5 commenters...
Spawning 100 readers...
Benchmarking for 30 iterations.
The test will run during 5 minutes.

  Nb blogs   R articles    W articles    R pictures    W pictures    R comments    W comments
         4        22162           331         12899           371          8508          1096
         7        27639           150         23482           231         13705           549
        11        28428           166         23500           184         13159           529
        13        30987           139         24113           203         13131           509
        15        26313           124         22269           216         13258           470
        18        26216           209         21735           117         13405           466
        21        27787           195         21211           154         16107           505
        25        24355           204         18644           119         13788           472
        25        23871           158         16952           174         12002           421
        29        25030           210         18663           122         12850           461
        31        20698           132         14991           170         10809           421
        32        22147           172         15772           139         10064           420
        35        23015           170         17037           146         13516           432
        37        21373           208         15879            69         10742           384
        39        19989           207         13771            92         10204           391
        40        20928           113         14695           182         12331           419
        43        19017           145         13707           137         10117           377
        45        19723           121         14704           148         10212           359
        46        21868           239         15962            57         10034           393
        49        20804           156         14306           108          8580           354
        50        19234            86         13484           166          9285           345
        52        21064           145         14912           129         11138           369
        55        19927           184         14679            81         11360           353
        56        18620           161         13516           101          9816           342
        59        20155           112         14120           141         10450           344
        61        18869           173         12958            78          8636           343
        63        18008           151         12693            99          8868           326
        66        19255           109         13548           143          9375           333
        66        18968           130         12749           126          8524           342
        68        17107            51         12086           165          8256           317

Final score for writes:            68
Final score for reads :         13925



Root Dude ? blogbench -d /var/tmp

Frequency = 10 secs
Scratch dir = [/var/tmp]
Spawning 3 writers...
Spawning 1 rewriters...
Spawning 5 commenters...
Spawning 100 readers...
Benchmarking for 30 iterations.
The test will run during 5 minutes.

  Nb blogs   R articles    W articles    R pictures    W pictures    R comments    W comments
         0         1505           101             0            16             0           181
         0         2163            66            37            35          1940           142
         0         1671            42           127            33          1304           109
         1         2228            11          1008            84          2482           144
         1         2027            34          1173            61          3059           145
         1         1407            22          1291            32           628            70
         3         3306            71          3330            39          1323           156
         4         3080            91          3058            22          2152           149
         4         1453            36          1306            16           596            64
         5         3190            56          2595            50          1423           144
         6         3299            50          2073            59           834           134
         6         1625            23           978            33           488            68
         6         2954            35          2032            73          1065           142
         8         3157            36          2198            78          1307           140
         9         1124            19           767            24           592            56
         9         2837            45          2093            64          1442           142
        11         2798            50          2124            63          1753           143
        12         1395            30          1181            23           776            69
        13         3312            87          2696            24          1283           143
        13         3105           102          2517            12          1546           146
        13         1670            43          1129            22          1266            80
        14         2248            32          1594            63          1900           119
        16         2876            78          2268            22          1608           136
        16         1797            52          1244            16          1168            89
        16         2142            48          1466            35          1649           106
        17         2903            45          2123            58          1406           131
        18         2096            22          1536            56          1096            97
        19         2091            30          1310            44          1076           100
        20         3152            41          2117            68          1127           138
        21         2510            52          1578            34          1294           115

Final score for writes:            21
Final score for reads :          2442


-------------- next part --------------
Copyright (c) 1992-2007 The FreeBSD Project.
Copyright (c) 1979, 1980, 1983, 1986, 1988, 1989, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994
        The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved.
FreeBSD is a registered trademark of The FreeBSD Foundation.
FreeBSD 6.2-STABLE #0: Mon May  7 20:16:35 EDT 2007
    root at maxu.earlham.edu:/usr/obj/usr/src/sys/maxu.070507
Timecounter "i8254" frequency 1193182 Hz quality 0
CPU: Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 2.80GHz (2800.11-MHz 686-class CPU)
  Origin = "GenuineIntel"  Id = 0xf64  Stepping = 4
  Features=0xbfebfbff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,APIC,SEP,MTRR,PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36
,CLFLUSH,DTS,ACPI,MMX,FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,PBE>
  Features2=0xe49d<SSE3,RSVD2,MON,DS_CPL,EST,CNTX-ID,CX16,<b14>,<b15>>
  AMD Features=0x20100000<NX,LM>
  AMD Features2=0x1<LAHF>
  Cores per package: 2
real memory  = 1073479680 (1023 MB)
avail memory = 1041326080 (993 MB)
ACPI APIC Table: <DELL   PE_SC3  >
FreeBSD/SMP: Multiprocessor System Detected: 2 CPUs
 cpu0 (BSP): APIC ID:  0
 cpu1 (AP): APIC ID:  1
ioapic0: Changing APIC ID to 2
ioapic0 <Version 2.0> irqs 0-23 on motherboard
kbd1 at kbdmux0
ath_hal: 0.9.20.3 (AR5210, AR5211, AR5212, RF5111, RF5112, RF2413, RF5413)
acpi0: <DELL PE_SC3> on motherboard
acpi0: Power Button (fixed)
Timecounter "ACPI-fast" frequency 3579545 Hz quality 1000
acpi_timer0: <24-bit timer at 3.579545MHz> port 0x808-0x80b on acpi0
cpu0: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
cpu1: <ACPI CPU> on acpi0
pcib0: <ACPI Host-PCI bridge> port 0xcf8-0xcff on acpi0
pci0: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib0
pcib1: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 1.0 on pci0
pci1: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib1
pcib2: <PCI-PCI bridge> at device 0.0 on pci1
pci2: <PCI bus> on pcib2
mpt0: <LSILogic SAS/SATA Adapter> port 0xec00-0xecff mem 0xfeafc000-0xfeafffff,0xfeae0000-0xf
eaeffff irq 16 at device 8.0 on pci2
mpt0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
mpt0: MPI Version=1.5.13.0
mpt0: mpt_cam_event: 0x16
mpt0: Unhandled Event Notify Frame. Event 0x16 (ACK not required).
mpt0: mpt_cam_event: 0x12
mpt0: Unhandled Event Notify Frame. Event 0x12 (ACK not required).
mpt0: mpt_cam_event: 0x12
mpt0: Unhandled Event Notify Frame. Event 0x12 (ACK not required).
mpt0: mpt_cam_event: 0x16
mpt0: Unhandled Event Notify Frame. Event 0x16 (ACK not required).
pcib3: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 28.0 on pci0
pci3: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib3
pcib4: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 28.4 on pci0
pci4: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib4
bge0: <Broadcom BCM5750 B1, ASIC rev. 0x4101> mem 0xfe6f0000-0xfe6fffff irq 16 at device 0.0 
on pci4
miibus0: <MII bus> on bge0
brgphy0: <BCM5750 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> on miibus0
brgphy0:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseTX, 1000baseTX-FDX, auto
bge0: Ethernet address: 00:18:8b:f8:e6:8c
pcib5: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 28.5 on pci0
pci5: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib5
bge1: <Broadcom BCM5750 B1, ASIC rev. 0x4101> mem 0xfe4f0000-0xfe4fffff irq 17 at device 0.0 
on pci5
miibus1: <MII bus> on bge1
brgphy1: <BCM5750 10/100/1000baseTX PHY> on miibus1
brgphy1:  10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseTX, 1000baseTX-FDX, auto
bge1: Ethernet address: 00:18:8b:f8:e6:8d
pcib6: <ACPI PCI-PCI bridge> at device 30.0 on pci0
pci6: <ACPI PCI bus> on pcib6
pci6: <display, VGA> at device 5.0 (no driver attached)
isab0: <PCI-ISA bridge> at device 31.0 on pci0
isa0: <ISA bus> on isab0
atapci0: <Intel ICH7 UDMA100 controller> port 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6,0x170-0x177,0x376,0xfc00-0xfc
0f at device 31.1 on pci0
ata0: <ATA channel 0> on atapci0
ata1: <ATA channel 1> on atapci0
pci0: <serial bus, SMBus> at device 31.3 (no driver attached)
acpi_hpet0: <High Precision Event Timer> iomem 0xfed00000-0xfed003ff on acpi0
Timecounter "HPET" frequency 14318180 Hz quality 2000
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6
atkbdc0: <Keyboard controller (i8042)> port 0x60,0x64 irq 1 on acpi0
atkbd0: <AT Keyboard> irq 1 on atkbdc0
kbd0 at atkbd0
atkbd0: [GIANT-LOCKED]
sio0: <16550A-compatible COM port> port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4 flags 0x10 on acpi0
sio0: type 16550A
fdc0: <floppy drive controller> port 0x3f0-0x3f5,0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2 on acpi0
fdc0: does not respond
device_attach: fdc0 attach returned 6
pmtimer0 on isa0
orm0: <ISA Option ROMs> at iomem 0xc0000-0xc8fff,0xc9000-0xc9fff,0xd0000-0xd17ff,0xec000-0xef
fff on isa0
ppc0: parallel port not found.
sc0: <System console> at flags 0x100 on isa0
sc0: VGA <16 virtual consoles, flags=0x300>
sio1: configured irq 3 not in bitmap of probed irqs 0
sio1: port may not be enabled
vga0: <Generic ISA VGA> at port 0x3c0-0x3df iomem 0xa0000-0xbffff on isa0
Timecounters tick every 1.000 msec
acd0: CDROM <HL-DT-ST GCR-8240N/1.10> at ata0-master UDMA33
SMP: AP CPU #1 Launched!
da0 at mpt0 bus 0 target 0 lun 0
da0: <Dell VIRTUAL DISK 1028> Fixed Direct Access SCSI-5 device 
da0: 300.000MB/s transfers, Tagged Queueing Enabled
da0: 237464MB (486326272 512 byte sectors: 255H 63S/T 30272C)
Trying to mount root from ufs:/dev/da0s1a
bge0: link state changed to UP



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