SE 3511 FC Performance Crap
[169 byte] By [bambenek] at [2007-11-25 23:15:52] 
I'm getting crap performance out of a 3511 array I just put in to service... backups took 50 hours and only got 9 GB...Suggestions to troubleshoot?
# 1
Need more info. (Backup software, tape drives, stats, etc.) torreysun at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 2
The performance in general is crap, it isn't just the backups. I just used that because that's the metric I have on hand.
400 GB sata drives x 12. RAID 5 config, 1.9 TB, only 200 GB used at the moment.
When moving that 200 GB of data over it took forever, but don't have exact time... the native disks were MUCH faster though... 5-10x easily.
Should be 2 GB fiber cars all the way through
bambenek at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 3
We have 3510 (FC version). Our overall performance is 100+ MB/s with one fibre link to a Sun V440 host. You should check /var/adm/messages for error and retires. ken@hbo at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 4
Same here - I've set up a mirrored pair (raid 1) of disks - and I'm only getting 6.5 Mb/sec of write speed using dd. Write back caching is turned on, and I'm seeing the cache fill up quickly.
Read speed is another matter - up to 65 Mb/sec.
On the other hand, I recall doing similar tests on an Apple X-Raid and getting 120 Mb/sec for read AND write.
pam_radius at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 5
The 3511 is designed for secondary storage, so it would be an ideal system to provide a fast backup volume. One thing that springs to mind here... RAID 5 - this configuration has very poor write performance ( we are testing ufsdump to JBOD and t3 RAID 5 with very low throughput figures ). Combine that with the overhead of a dual controller configuration could explain very poor back up performance. It is hard to just come up with a solution here, it would be good to get more information, what backup tools are you using? Is the backup time running into production time? Have you thought about using additional tools eg Sun AVS?
mlennon at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 6
> Same here - I've set up a mirrored pair (raid 1) of
> disks - and I'm only getting 6.5 Mb/sec of write
> speed using dd. Write back caching is turned on, and
> I'm seeing the cache fill up quickly.
>
> Read speed is another matter - up to 65 Mb/sec.
>
> On the other hand, I recall doing similar tests on an
> Apple X-Raid and getting 120 Mb/sec for read AND
> write.
You give very little detail on this setup. Does " same here " mean that you are using the 3510/3511 storage system? Mirrored pair sounds more like a boot disk configuration o me, if so what system is it? A system like an Ultra 60 would have limited throughput due to the fact that the on board disk contoller is designed around UltraSCSI, which offers 40MB/s max.
The reason I mention the Ultra 60 is that I have recently spoken with a customer who were testing Solaris performance against OS-X, however they were using an Ultra 60 and a Powermac G5 ( I think it was the G5 model, the mac was new ). Any performance figures in such a test are pointless since the Sun system is 10 years old.
mlennon at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
# 7
Check your caching parameters...shuold be set to "Write-Back Cache Enabled"... I had terrible performance, after changing this (and making sure the LD was also set to the same, specifically, upon creation), I had much better performance. txolson at 2007-7-5 18:04:51 >
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