reiser is way faster than ext3
 

Wow what a differnece using reiserfs over ext3, reiser is almost 2x faster on my usb 2.0 hard drive. I can't believe it. Take a look at this

/dev/sda1 1 19929 160079661 5 Extended
/dev/sda5 1 9561 76798669+ ext3
/dev/sda6 9562 13640 32764536 fat32
/dev/sda7 13641 19929 50516361 reiserfs

/dev/sda7:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.71 seconds = 23.62 MB/sec
[root@schrock321 schrock]# /sbin/hdparm -t /dev/sda6

/dev/sda6:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 5.10 seconds = 12.55 MB/sec
[root@schrock321 schrock]#

Yes, i had read somewhere (micromart if you're from the UK) that it was faster... Didn't realise that much faster though :D

Re: reiser is way faster than ext3
 

I would hope that reiserfs is faster then a FAT32 partition in linux or is that just a typo and you really meant sda5.

From what I've read: reiserfs is faster with smaller files, jfs is faster with big files. ext3 is just an ext2 with a journal but you can still use all of the ext2 disk utilities if you remount it as ext2.

ext3 and fat32 always run about the same speed for me. This was not a typo just a messup. I meant to test sda5. I will test the ext3 partition when I get home. But I'm confident that the fat32 and ext3 will be the same. I have tested the ext3 partition 2 days ago against the fat32 partition and they were the same. But I will post the actual results just the same.

Does anyone else care to post some comparisons also?

How did you benchmark the drive?

I'm assuming you want to know how I came up with these results? If so then do this at the command prompt, substituting sda6 with what ever your hard drive is
/sbin/hdparm -t /dev/sda6

for details do a
"man hdparm"
at the command prompt

You might find this interesting :

Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.95 seconds = 32.82 MB/sec

This is with ext3. To be exact, here is fstab entry :

/dev/hda3 / ext3 defaults 1 1

The machine is a 1.7g P4, on an Asus P4b533 board. The disk drive is a Maxtor 7200 rpm, 80g, UDMA100.

What I find most interesting is that this number beats those obtained by your scsi drives. I am reading that correctly, right ?

JC

This is also very interesting :

root@jac3:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda2

/dev/hda2:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.29 seconds = 27.95 MB/sec
root@jac3:~# hdparm -t /dev/hda3

/dev/hda3:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.15 seconds = 29.77 MB/sec
root@jac3:~#


This is a much more modest machine ( PII 400mhz ).
But it does have a 7200rpm, 80g, UDMA100 drive. Maybe that is where the performance is coming from.

But these scores are also higher than the ones listed by illtbagu.

illtbagu, are you sure that something isn't mis-configured on your box ? It seems to me that with SCSI devices, you should be able to beat all my scores.

Please post again and list the SCSI controller and disk that you have.

JC

I always use the command

put you drive where the *** is.

I need to update mine. These drives are capable of a bit more. These settings are pretty conservative. May post back the new ones.


Later

:D :D :D :D

Hey, that's cool. When you include 'T' you also test the cache.

Here's my results :

P4 1.7g machine :

root@jac:~# hdparm -tT /dev/hda3

/dev/hda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.37 seconds =345.95 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.94 seconds = 32.99 MB/sec

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PII 400m machine :

root@jac3:~# hdparm -tT /dev/hda3

/dev/hda3:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.01 seconds =126.73 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.15 seconds = 29.77 MB/sec

Thanks for the tip.

JC

Yep it is neat. Just have to be careful with those settings. Can really screw one up.

Here's mine after a bit of tweaking:

It's a bit better.

Later

:D :D :D

I usually do this, and it's usually safe :

hdparm -d 1 -c 1 -k 1 /dev/hda

You should see output like this :

/dev/hda:
setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 1
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
setting keep_settings to 1 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 1 (on)
root@jac:/#

Is there an advantage to having 'using_dma = 3' as opposed to 'using_dma=1' ?

Also, what about setting the read ahead on ? How did you do that ?

And last, does the 'keepsettings=1' function mean that you only have to set things one time ?
Currently, I have the entry 'hdparm -d 1 -c 1 -k 1 /dev/hda' in my 'rc.local' file so that it sets it every boot.

Chipset i845GE
Never had to mess with hdparm to alter the original settings except when I misconfigured my IDE_BLK_DEV in the kernel.
Same for my older P3/Via133a-ATA66, ...which scores in the wherabouts of Dalek's numbers ...iirc, not booted atm.

Very interesting UnTamed.
I'm going to test mine without setting the flags and see if there is a difference.

You have very impressive scores. I guess that your disks are just a little bit better quality.

How did you get that output that you posted ?

hdparm does not benchmark the filesystem. It only benchmarks your hardware. Use bonnie or something similar to find out the real speed for each filesystem.

This is not a SCSI hard drive, Its a usb hard drive. How would you say this, hmmmm its modularly loaded as a SCSI device!! Just like a cdburner.

Here is the output from my IDE drives:

[root@schrock321 schrock]# /sbin/hdparm -tT /dev/hdg5

/dev/hdg5:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.24 seconds =533.33 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.16 seconds = 55.17 MB/sec


Im running a maxtor IDE controller card. It runs about 33% faster that my onboard IDE controller card.

anyone got this 55.17 MB/sec beat :)

I would like to know what SATA (serial ata can do) I hear all of this hipe about sata. Some one have some sata drive results?

Celeron 1.7
2-WD 7200 rpm hd
no changes to hdparm

hdparm -Tt /dev/hda /dev/hdb

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.32 seconds =400.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.39 seconds = 46.04 MB/sec

/dev/hdb:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.35 seconds =365.71 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.38 seconds = 46.38 MB/sec

Electro is absolutely right, that's why I didn't bother with individual partitions and FS, and the discussion had already shifted to hdparm and it's settings and I forgot to mention it.
I'm using reiserfs for my / since before ext3 was made available and always was very pleased with it so I never tried ext3.
For my /home and other storage, where I have larger files, music, movies and stuff, I use XFS.

Lostboy, what you see is what you get, as I said no obscure and magical hdparm string,
the hardware involved is pretty much in the posting, btw that's part of the output of lshw, something like lspci but more complete.
Probably not included in your distro, see freshmeat if you're interested.

I'm on kernel-2.6.0-test11 but I get those figures on 2.4 also, nothing special really.

One thing you have to realize is that your actual throughput will always revert to the slowest protocol supported by either your drive or the controller.
i.e ATA66 driver on a ATA100 controller will run @ ATA66, same for ATA100 drive on ATA66 or worse ATA33 chipset or external controller.
And then there's probably chipsets that are not supported as well and for those, I guess setting parametres through hdparm might be required to get the most out of the hardware, but I've been so lucky to never have to mess with it on both my systems.