Raw devices
 

I'm currently getting poor I/O performance accessing an external raid storage array with both reads and writes. However from a windows machine the numbers are great it is my belief that the Linux 2.6 kernel is bottlenecking the I/O. Currently I run Fedora Core 2 with a qla2200f HBA using the qla2xxx.ko and qla2200.ko driver modules. The machine is a 64bit athalon with 512mb of ram, connected to a 4TB storage array. I am hoping to bypass the kernel buffer and read/write directly to the raw device I've read this can be done but can't find any info on how to do it. Any input would be greatly appreciated.


Thanks,

gaoul

How does it work with a 2.4 kernel?
And what kind of figures are we looking at,
quantising it ... factor in the comparison between
Linux and winDOHs? And how do you know
that it's not the machine but the OS if windows
in on another machine?


Cheers,
Tink

Uh, Yeah I saw those qustionstions coming but I didn't(and still don't) have the numbers in front of me I'll have to get you on that.