Diskless distro for benchmark

dtournas · 06-09-2004, 01:51 AM

Hello forum,

we have an IBM 255 xSeries we are using as Application Server. Unfortunately, this application, uses Windows 2000 Server. The server, has an 4lx SCSI controller with 5 33.6Gb disks on RAID 5. I have tried some performance utilities on the disk and I get an average speed of 20Mb/s !!!. That is unacceptable for 10K Ultra SCSI disks.

So, after changing every single part of the server, IBM told us, that is the Windows that slows that much the disks and that I should talk with Microsoft. I'd rather die!!

I have convinced my I/T manager to migrate the application server to another PC, and use the IBM Server as our Database server under Linux. But I need to check that the performance will be better with linux.

So, I need a disk-less distro that can see our IBM 4lx controller and a tested benchmark utility for that distro.

Any ideas / help are appreciated.

Thank you!

fluppi · 06-09-2004, 02:09 AM

www.knoppix.com is a live system based on Debian, it boots from CD-ROM and leaves your harddisks untouched and has a wide hardware support.

But reading NTFS can be tricky!

I was in the same situation before: Copy of data (Inside, FTP, SMB) tooks much more longer with windows! (Tested on a dualboot PC (W2k+Suse9) with the same file).

The performance will increase, but the application server PC may become the bottleneck !

dtournas · 06-09-2004, 02:17 AM

Thank you for the reply. Do you know if knoopix has any benchmark utility?

MS3FGX · 06-09-2004, 10:49 AM

I doubt that Windows is limiting you to such low speeds.

There are literally millions of Windows systems with RAID setups, and they all aren't stuck at 20 MB/s, especially with 10K SCSI drives.

I would go ahead and test with a LiveCD, but I would also look more closely at your hardware. Hardware tech support is always nearly useless, I can't tell you how many times a hardware manufacturer told me that a problem could not be resolved, and then I fixed it on my own.

From keyboards to servers, tech support always sucks.

P.S.

Are you testing for random reads or linear reads? Since random is always going to be much slower than linear.

dtournas · 06-10-2004, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by MS3FGX

P.S.

Are you testing for random reads or linear reads? Since random is always going to be much slower than linear.

Well, I use a freeware benchmark utility for windows. So the results may not be accurate. Nevertheless, 20Mb/s even for random reads sucks. Do you have a utility to suggest? Win or Linux.

Thank you!