[CentOS] Write performance with 3ware 9550

Bowie Bailey
Fri, 13 Oct 2006 15:44:36 -0000

Kirk Bocek wrote:
> Responding to several of your posts here. I understand your need for
> stability, but can't you set StorSave down and see what it does to
> your speed?

I could, but I don't see the point.  I have one machine with StorSave
set at "Protect" which writes at 60MB/Sec.  The other identical system
which is also set to "Protect" only writes at 20MB/Sec.  Therefore,
there must be something else at work.

As we speak, I have swapped the hard drives in these two systems and I
am running another test.  This will at least tell me if the problem is
based in the hard drives & OS or elsewhere in hardware.

> Some of my 95MB/Sec was achieved with some of the suggested ext3
> journal settings. Look back through my previous thread.
>
> Memory interleaving on my system (Supermicro X7DVL-E) is turned on
> automatically when you install two pairs of memory sticks. With 16GB
> on your system, I *assume* you have at least 4 sticks. Check the
> manual and see if there is a BIOS setting.

I found the interleaving settings in the BIOS.  Both systems currently
have it turned off, so I haven't touched it at this point.  Once I
have determined why the performance is so different between these two
machines, I may experiment with that setting to see if it helps.

Right now, I am not looking for maximum performance.  I am just trying
to determine why there is a 3x difference in write performance between
two identical machines.

--
Bowie