ClonchWiki: Sheeva Storage Benchmarks

Sheeva Storage Benchmarks

In thinking of uses for my plug, I wondered what performance is for various storage avenues. I decided to load bonnie plus plus (wiki traps the plus sign) and start recording some. My goal is to be able to compare some USB storage (USB thumb drives, USB HDD enclosures), iSCSI, and SDCard. If I could get a hold of a laser thermometer, it could be interesting to track the temp of the housing (and maybe insides if I was courageous enough to open it up) while the tests are running.

Testing Environment

Using stock Ubuntu operating system with latest upgrades (07/24/2009).
Using 2.6.30.2 kernel from here.
Commandline:
time bonnie++ -q -m $HOSTNAME-n256 -n 256 -x 5 -d <scratchdir> > <filename>.csv
- From original Bonnie website: It is important to use a file size that is several times the size of the available memory (RAM) - otherwise, the operating system will cache large parts of the file, and Bonnie will end up doing very little I/O. At least four times the size of the available memory is desirable.
  - So specify fsize may not be desirable. Bonnie plus plus automatically figures this so probably just leave it alone.

- <fnum> (-n) is 16, 128, 256, 512.

- Is running the test 5 times overkill? I would think multiple runs are needed to ensure accurate testing...
- CPU % as reported is only for a single core.

So a bash script to automate this is:

bpptest.sh

#!/bin/bash

SCRATCH=$1

CMT=" $2"

CSVFILE="bpp_${HOSTNAME}.csv"

FNUMS="16 128 256 512"

# Safety checks...

BPP=`which bonnie++ 2> /dev/null`

if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then

  [ -x /usr/sbin/bonnie++ ] && BPP="/usr/sbin/bonnie++"

  [ -x /usr/local/sbin/bonnie++ ] && BPP="/usr/local/sbin/bonnie++"

  [ -x /usr/local/bin/bonnie++ ] && BPP="/usr/local/bin/bonnie++"

fi

if [ ! ${BPP} ]; then

  echo "I couldn't find bonnie++ binary.  Giving up."

  exit 1

fi

[ ! $1 ] && echo "You must name a scratch directory." && exit 1

if [ ! -d ${SCRATCH} ]; then

  echo "You must first create ${SCRATCH}!"

  exit 1

fi

# Lets get ready to rumble...

for FNUM in ${FNUMS}; do

  echo "---------------------------------------------"

  echo "Starting a timed run with -n ${FNUM}..."

  time ${BPP} -m "${HOSTNAME}${CMT}" -q -n ${FNUM} -d ${SCRATCH} >> ${CSVFILE}

  echo

done

ClonchWiki : SheevaStorageBenchmarks

Sheeva Storage Benchmarks

Testing Environment

SDCard

USB Enclosures

iSCSI