An interesting thing I just noticed here testing out some Firewire drives with OpenSolaris. Setup : OpenSolaris 2009.06 and a dev version (snv_129) 2 500Gb Firewire 400 drives with integrated hubs for daisy-chaining (net: 4 devices on the chain) - one SATA bridge - one PATA bridge Created a zpool with both drives as simple vdevs Started a zfs send/recv to backup a local filesystem Watching zpool iostat I see that the total throughput maxes out at about 10MB/s. Thinking that one of the drives may be at fault, I stopped, destroyed the pool and created two separate pools from each drive. Restarting the send/recv to one disk and saw the same max throughput. Tried to the other and got the same thing. Then I started one send/recv to one disk, got the max right away, and started and send/recv to the second one and got about 4MB/second while the first operation dropped to about 6MB/second. It would appear that the bus bandwidth is limited to about 10MB/sec (~80Mbps) which is well below the theoretical 400Mbps that 1394 is supposed to be able to handle. I know that these two disks can go significantly higher since I was seeing 30MB/sec when they were used on Macs previously in the same daisy-chain configuration. I get the same symptoms on both the 2009.06 and the b129 machines. It''s not a critical issue to me since these drives will eventually just be used for send/recv backups over a slow link, but it doesn''t augur well for the day I need to restore data... Anyone else seen this behaviour with Firewire devices and OpenSolaris? Erik
On Thu, March 18, 2010 04:50, erik.ableson wrote:> > It would appear that the bus bandwidth is limited to about 10MB/sec > (~80Mbps) which is well below the theoretical 400Mbps that 1394 is > supposed to be able to handle. I know that these two disks can go > significantly higher since I was seeing 30MB/sec when they were used on > Macs previously in the same daisy-chain configuration. > > I get the same symptoms on both the 2009.06 and the b129 machines.While it wasn''t on Solaris, I must say that I''ve been consistently disappointed by the performance of external 1394 drives on various Linux boxes. I invested in the interface cards for the boxes, and in the external drives that supported Firewire, because everything said it performed much better for disk IO, but in fact I have never found it to be the case. Sort-of-glad to hear I don''t have to wonder if I should be trying it on Solaris. -- David Dyer-Bennet, dd-b at dd-b.net; http://dd-b.net/ Snapshots: http://dd-b.net/dd-b/SnapshotAlbum/data/ Photos: http://dd-b.net/photography/gallery/ Dragaera: http://dragaera.info
On 18 mars 2010, at 16:58, David Dyer-Bennet wrote:> On Thu, March 18, 2010 04:50, erik.ableson wrote: > >> It would appear that the bus bandwidth is limited to about 10MB/sec >> (~80Mbps) which is well below the theoretical 400Mbps that 1394 is >> supposed to be able to handle. I know that these two disks can go >> significantly higher since I was seeing 30MB/sec when they were used on >> Macs previously in the same daisy-chain configuration. >> >> I get the same symptoms on both the 2009.06 and the b129 machines. > > While it wasn''t on Solaris, I must say that I''ve been consistently > disappointed by the performance of external 1394 drives on various Linux > boxes. I invested in the interface cards for the boxes, and in the > external drives that supported Firewire, because everything said it > performed much better for disk IO, but in fact I have never found it to > be the case. > > Sort-of-glad to hear I don''t have to wonder if I should be trying it on > Solaris.Ditto on the Linux front. I was hoping that Solaris would be the exception, but no luck. I wonder if Apple wouldn''t mind lending one of the driver engineers to OpenSolaris for a few months... Hmmm - that makes me wonder about the Darwin drivers - they''re open sourced if I remember correctly. Erik
On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, erik.ableson wrote:> > Ditto on the Linux front. I was hoping that Solaris would be the > exception, but no luck. I wonder if Apple wouldn''t mind lending one > of the driver engineers to OpenSolaris for a few months...Perhaps the issue is the filesystem rather than the drivers. Apple users have different expectations regarding data loss than Solaris and Linux users do. Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, erik.ableson wrote: >> >> Ditto on the Linux front. I was hoping that Solaris would be the >> exception, but no luck. I wonder if Apple wouldn''t mind lending one >> of the driver engineers to OpenSolaris for a few months... > > Perhaps the issue is the filesystem rather than the drivers. Apple > users have different expectations regarding data loss than Solaris and > Linux users do.No, the Solaris firewire drivers are just broken. There is a long trail of bug reports that nobody has sufficient interest to fix. And really, you think Linux is better about data loss than OS X? Please cite your sources, because given my experience with Linux, I call bullshit. -- Carson
>Apple users have different expectations regarding data loss than Solaris and Linux users do.Come on, no Apple user bashing. Not true, not fair. Scott -- This message posted from opensolaris.org
On Mar 18, 2010, at 14:23, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, erik.ableson wrote: >> >> Ditto on the Linux front. I was hoping that Solaris would be the >> exception, but no luck. I wonder if Apple wouldn''t mind lending >> one of the driver engineers to OpenSolaris for a few months... > > Perhaps the issue is the filesystem rather than the drivers. Apple > users have different expectations regarding data loss than Solaris > and Linux users do.Apple users (of which I am one) expect things to Just Work. :) And there are Apple users and Apple users: http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/ode_to_diskwarrior_superduper_dropbox If anyone Apple is paying attention, perhaps you could re-open discussions with now-Oracle about getting ZFS into Mac OS. :)
I''m also a Mac user. I use Mozy instead of DropBox, but it sounds like DropBox should get a place at the table. I''m about to download it in a few minutes. I''m right now re-cloning my internal HD due to some HFS+ weirdness. I have to completely agree that ZFS would be a great addition to MacOS X, and the best imaginable replacement for HFS+. The file system and associated problems are my only complaint with the entire OS. I guess my browser usage pattern is just too much for HFS+. Of course, I''m the only person I know who said that Sun should have bought Apple 10 years ago. What do I know? Getting better FireWire performance on OpenSolaris would be nice though. Darwin drivers are open...hmmm. On Thu, Mar 18, 2010 at 18:19, David Magda <dmagda at ee.ryerson.ca> wrote:> On Mar 18, 2010, at 14:23, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > > On Thu, 18 Mar 2010, erik.ableson wrote: >> >>> >>> Ditto on the Linux front. I was hoping that Solaris would be the >>> exception, but no luck. I wonder if Apple wouldn''t mind lending one of the >>> driver engineers to OpenSolaris for a few months... >>> >> >> Perhaps the issue is the filesystem rather than the drivers. Apple users >> have different expectations regarding data loss than Solaris and Linux users >> do. >> > > Apple users (of which I am one) expect things to Just Work. :) > > And there are Apple users and Apple users: > > http://daringfireball.net/2010/03/ode_to_diskwarrior_superduper_dropbox > > If anyone Apple is paying attention, perhaps you could re-open discussions > with now-Oracle about getting ZFS into Mac OS. :) > > > _______________________________________________ > zfs-discuss mailing list > zfs-discuss at opensolaris.org > http://mail.opensolaris.org/mailman/listinfo/zfs-discuss >-- "You can choose your friends, you can choose the deals." - Equity Private "If Linux is faster, it''s a Solaris bug." - Phil Harman Blog - http://whatderass.blogspot.com/ Twitter - @khyron4eva -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20100319/9f6f9e60/attachment.html>
Funny, I thought the same thing up until a couple of years ago when I thought Apple should have bought Sun :-) Cordialement, Erik Ableson +33.6.80.83.58.28 Envoy? depuis mon iPhone On 19 mars 2010, at 09:41, Khyron <khyron4eva at gmail.com> wrote:> Of course, I''m the only person I know who said that Sun should have > bought Apple 10 years ago. What do I know?
On Fri, 19 Mar 2010, Khyron wrote:> Getting better FireWire performance on OpenSolaris would be nice though. > Darwin drivers are open...hmmm.OS-X is only (legally) used on Apple hardware. Has anyone considered that since Firewire is important to Apple, they may have selected a particular Firewire chip which performs particularly well? Bob -- Bob Friesenhahn bfriesen at simple.dallas.tx.us, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/ GraphicsMagick Maintainer, http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/
On 19 Mar 2010, at 15:30, Bob Friesenhahn wrote:> On Fri, 19 Mar 2010, Khyron wrote: >> Getting better FireWire performance on OpenSolaris would be nice though. >> Darwin drivers are open...hmmm. > > OS-X is only (legally) used on Apple hardware. Has anyone considered that since Firewire is important to Apple, they may have selected a particular Firewire chip which performs particularly well?Darwin is open-source. http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1486.2.11/ http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/IOFireWireFamily/IOFireWireFamily-417.4.0/ Alex
The point I think Bob was making is that FireWire is an Apple technology, so they have a vested interest in making sure it works well on their systems and with their OS. They could even have a specific chipset that they exclusively use in their systems, although I don''t see why others couldn''t source it (with the exception that others may be too cheap to do so). Given these factors, it makes sense that FireWire performs brilliantly on Apple hardware/software, while everyone else makes the bare minimum (or less) investment in it, if that much. So those open drivers, while they could be useful for learning or other purposes, may not be directly usable for the systems people are running with OpenSolaris. At least, that''s what I think Bob meant. On Fri, Mar 19, 2010 at 17:08, Alex Blewitt <alex.blewitt at gmail.com> wrote:> On 19 Mar 2010, at 15:30, Bob Friesenhahn wrote: > > > On Fri, 19 Mar 2010, Khyron wrote: > >> Getting better FireWire performance on OpenSolaris would be nice though. > >> Darwin drivers are open...hmmm. > > > > OS-X is only (legally) used on Apple hardware. Has anyone considered > that since Firewire is important to Apple, they may have selected a > particular Firewire chip which performs particularly well? > > Darwin is open-source. > > http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/xnu/xnu-1486.2.11/ > > http://www.opensource.apple.com/source/IOFireWireFamily/IOFireWireFamily-417.4.0/ > > Alex-- "You can choose your friends, you can choose the deals." - Equity Private "If Linux is faster, it''s a Solaris bug." - Phil Harman Blog - http://whatderass.blogspot.com/ Twitter - @khyron4eva -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20100319/36f22695/attachment.html>
>>>>> "k" == Khyron <khyron4eva at gmail.com> writes:k> FireWire is an Apple technology, so they have a vested k> interest in making sure it works well [...] They could even k> have a specific chipset that they exclusively use in their k> systems, yes, you keep repeating yourselves, but there are only a few firewire host chips, like ohci and lynx, and apple uses the same ones as everyone else, no magic. Why would you speak such a complicated fantasy out loud without any reason to believe it other than your imaginations? I also tried to use firewire on Solaris long ago and had a lot of problems with it, both with the driver stack in Solaris and with the embedded software inside a cheaper non-Oxford case (Prolific). I think y''all forum users shuold stick to SAS/SATA for external disks and avoid firewire and USB both. Realize, though, that it is not just the chip driver but the entire software stack that influences speed and reliability. Even above what you normally consider the firewire stack, above all the mid-layer and scsi emulation stuff, Mac OS X for example is rigorous about handling force-unmounting, both with umount -f and disks that go away without warning. FreeBSD OTOH has major problems with force-unmounting, panicing and waiting forever. Solaris has problems too with freezing zpool maintenance commands, access to pools unrelated to the one with the device that went away, and NFS serving anything while any zpool is frozen. This is a problem even if you don''t make a habit of yanking disks because it can make diagnosing problems really difficult: what if your case, like my non-Oxford one, has a firmware bug that makes it freeze up sometimes? or a flakey power supply or lose cable? If the OS does not stay up long enough to report the case detached, and stay sane enough for you to figure out what makes it retach (waiting a while, rebooting the case, jiggling the power connector, jiggling the data connector) then you will probably never figure out what''s wrong with it, as I didn''t for months while if I''d had the same broken case on a Mac I''d have realized almost immediately that it sometimes detaches itself for no reason and retaches when I cycle it''s power switch but not when I plug/unplug its data cable and not when I reboot the Mac, so I''d know the case had buggy firmware, while with Solaris I just get these craaaaaazy panic messages. Once your exception handling reaches a certain level of crappyness, you cannot touch anything without everything collapsing. And on Solaris all this freezing/panicing behavior depends a lot which disk driver yuo''re using while Mac OS X it''s, meh, basically working the same for SATA, USB, Firewire, or NFS client, and also you can mount images with hdiutil over NFS without getting weird checksum errors or deadlocks like you do with file or lofiadm-backed ZFS. (globalsan iscsi is still a mess though, worse than all other mac disk drivers and worse than the solaris initiator) I do not like the Mac OS much because it''s slow, because the hardware''s overpriced and fragile, because the only people running it inside VM''s are using piratebay copies, and because I distrust Apple and strongly disapprove of their master plan both in intent and practice like the way they crippled dtrace, the displayport bullshit, and their terrible developer relations like nontransparent last-minute API yanking and ``agreements'''' where you even have to agree not to discuss the agreement, and in general of their honing a talent for manipulating people into exploitable corners by slowly convincing them it''s okay to feel lazy and entitled. But yes they''ve got some things relevant to server-side storage working better than Solaris does like handling flakey disks sanely, and providing source for the stable supported version of their OS not just the development version. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 304 bytes Desc: not available URL: <http://mail.opensolaris.org/pipermail/zfs-discuss/attachments/20100320/ee69d46e/attachment.bin>
> It would appear that the bus bandwidth is limited to about 10MB/sec > (~80Mbps) which is well below the theoretical 400Mbps that 1394 is > supposed to be able to handle. I know that these two disks can go > significantly higher since I was seeing 30MB/sec when they were used on > Macs previously in the same daisy-chain configuration.I have not done 1394 in solaris or opensolaris. But I have used it in windows, mac, and Linux. Many times for each one. I never have even the remotest problem with it in any of these other platforms. I consider it more universally reliable, even than USB, because occasionally I see a bad USB driver on some boot CD or something, which can only drive USB around 11Mbit. Again, I''ve never had anything but decent performance out of 1394. Generally speaking, I use 1394 on: Dell laptops Lenovo laptops Apple laptops Apple XServe HP laptops ... and maybe some dell servers...