Adaptec ASH-1233 and Solaris 10 part deux
So I switch the 4 drives around so the large zfs pool is on the onboard controller and the smaller zfs pool is on the PCI controller. I then reran bonnie and look at the results now:
Old Slow zfs pool:
# ./bonnie
File './Bonnie.581', size: 104857600
Writing with putc()...done
Rewriting...done
Writing intelligently...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
Seeker 1...Seeker 2...Seeker 3...start 'em...done...done...done...
-------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
100 15822 51.9 21557 18.7 12929 13.9 25061 97.6 23125 12.0 284.8 3.0
Is now nice and fast (or as fast as my on board controller will handle. The FTP now stays at 10M/s solid which is what I was looking for (this pool is used to serve Video to my Replay TV units).
Now the old fast pool is the new slow pool:
File './Bonnie.585', size: 104857600
Writing with putc()...done
Rewriting...done
Writing intelligently...done
Reading with getc()...done
Reading intelligently...done
Seeker 1...Seeker 2...Seeker 3...start 'em...done...done...done...
-------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
100 975 3.0 1125 1.1 1541 1.5 26689 99.9 209631 99.9 42.6 0.6
as you can see that controller card is awful.. Now I understand why my growfs took so long when I added the drives a while back (it took over 2 hours to run). So I guess now, I need to do one of the following:
- Find a new server that has SATA support on the mobo
- Find a new controller card that has a BIOS that I can force the UltraDMA to be on
- Get some IDE to scsi convertors to attach the drives to the scsi card I have
- Get a SATA card and new SATA drives to extend the pool with
All in all, it is going to be a small amount of money for any of the options, but probably getting SATA cards will be the next step I do. I just can’t see getting rid of a perfectly fine Dual PIII when all it is doing is file serving and running a Zone for DVArchive.
I sure wish I had found this entry before I bought ASH-1233 cards and some 500GB hard drives to make a ZFS fileserver out of an old dual P3 server.
Out of curiosity, what SATA cards/disks did you end up purchasing?
Actually I have not gotten any new cards or disks. I will probably end up getting a 4 or 8 port card at some time and the largest drives I can find when I buy the card. But for now. I still just have the 2 x 400 and 2 x 120gb drives in use.