Tag: xfs

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XFS write speeds: software RAID 0/5/6 across 45 spindles

We’re currently building a new storage server to store low-priority data (tertiary backups, etc). One of the requirements for the project is that it needs to be on cheap storage (as opposed to expensive enterprise SAN/NAS). After some research we decided to build a Backblaze pod. Backblaze used 3TB Hitachi drives in their system, but the ones they listed in their blog post are discontinued and the reviews for all other 3TB+ drives were terrible, so we went with Samsung ST2000DL004 2TB 7200 RPM drives. Like Backblaze, we’re going with software raid, but I figured a good first step would be to figure out what RAID level we want to use, and if we want to use the mdadm/LVM mish-mosh Backblaze uses, or find something simpler. For my testing I created a RAID6 of all 45 drives and created a single XFS volume (XFS’s size limit is ~8 exabytes vs ext4’s 16TB). Ext4 may present some performance advantages, but the management overhead is probably not worth it in our case.

So, this is just a simple benchmarking comparing RAID 0 (stripe with no parity) as a baseline, RAID5 (stripe with 1 parity disk) and RAID6 (stripe with 2 parity disks) across 45 total spindles. For all tests I used Linux software RAID (mdadm).

To test, I have 3 scripts, makeraid0.sh, makeraid5.sh, and makeraid6.sh. Each one does what its name implies. The raid0 has 43 disks, raid5 has 44 disks, and raid6 has 45 disks, so there are 43 “data” disks in each test. The system is a Protocase “Backblaze-inspired” system with a Core i3 540 CPU, 8 GB memory, CentOS 6.3 x64, and 45x We’re just using this box for backup and it gives us about 79 TB usable, which is still plenty, so 2TB isn’t a big problem.

makeraid?.sh for filesystem creation:

#!/bin/bash

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=raid6 -c 256K --raid-devices=45 
/dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde 
/dev/sdf /dev/sdg /dev/sdh /dev/sdi /dev/sdj 
/dev/sdk /dev/sdl /dev/sdm /dev/sdn /dev/sdo 
/dev/sdp /dev/sdq /dev/sdr /dev/sds /dev/sdt 
/dev/sdu /dev/sdv /dev/sdw /dev/sdx /dev/sdy 
/dev/sdz /dev/sdaa /dev/sdab /dev/sdac /dev/sdad 
/dev/sdae /dev/sdaf /dev/sdag /dev/sdah /dev/sdai 
/dev/sdaj /dev/sdak /dev/sdal /dev/sdam /dev/sdan 
/dev/sdao /dev/sdap /dev/sdaq /dev/sdar /dev/sdas

Filesystem:

[root@Protocase ~]# mkfs.xfs -f /dev/md0
meta-data=/dev/md0               isize=256    agcount=79, agsize=268435392 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=21000267072, imaxpct=1
         =                       sunit=64     swidth=2752 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=521728, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=64 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
[root@Protocase ~]# mount /dev/md0 /raid0/
[root@Protocase ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdat2            289G  3.2G  271G   2% /
tmpfs                 3.9G  260K  3.9G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sdat1            485M   62M  398M  14% /boot
/dev/md0               79T   35M   79T   1% /raid0

RAID0

[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 25.1944 s, 416 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 25.1922 s, 416 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 24.7665 s, 423 MB/s

RAID5

[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 25.2239 s, 416 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 24.7427 s, 424 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 24.2434 s, 433 MB/s

RAID6:

[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 26.9032 s, 390 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 26.5255 s, 395 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -f /raid0/zeros.dat 
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 26.4338 s, 397 MB/s

I found it pretty strange that RAID5 seemed to outperform RAID0, but I tested it several times and RAID5 averaged 10-15 MB/s faster than RAID0. Maybe a bug in the kernel? I tried other block sizes ranging from 60KB to 4MB for dd but the results were pretty consistent. In the end it looks like I’m going to go with RAID6 of 43 drives + 2 hotspares, which still yields ~400 MB/s throughput and 75 TB usable:

#!/bin/bash

mdadm --create /dev/md0 --level=raid6 -c 256K -n 43 -x 2 
/dev/sda /dev/sdb /dev/sdc /dev/sdd /dev/sde 
/dev/sdf /dev/sdg /dev/sdh /dev/sdi /dev/sdj 
/dev/sdk /dev/sdl /dev/sdm /dev/sdn /dev/sdo 
/dev/sdp /dev/sdq /dev/sdr /dev/sds /dev/sdt 
/dev/sdu /dev/sdv /dev/sdw /dev/sdx /dev/sdy 
/dev/sdz /dev/sdaa /dev/sdab /dev/sdac /dev/sdad 
/dev/sdae /dev/sdaf /dev/sdag /dev/sdah /dev/sdai 
/dev/sdaj /dev/sdak /dev/sdal /dev/sdam /dev/sdan 
/dev/sdao /dev/sdap /dev/sdaq /dev/sdar /dev/sdas

Update: A coworker suggested looking into write-intent bitmap to improve rebuild speeds. After adding a 256 MB-chunked bitmap, the write performance didn’t degrade much, so this looks like a good addition to the configuration:

[root@Protocase ~]# mdadm -G --bitmap-chunk=256M --bitmap=internal /dev/md0
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 25.8157 s, 406 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -fv /raid0/zeros.dat
removed `/raid0/zeros.dat'
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 26.4233 s, 397 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# rm -fv /raid0/zeros.dat
removed `/raid0/zeros.dat'
[root@Protocase ~]# dd if=/dev/zero of=/raid0/zeros.dat bs=1M count=10000
10000+0 records in
10000+0 records out
10485760000 bytes (10 GB) copied, 26.2593 s, 399 MB/s
[root@Protocase ~]# df -h
Filesystem            Size  Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdat2            289G  3.2G  271G   2% /
tmpfs                 3.9G   88K  3.9G   1% /dev/shm
/dev/sdat1            485M   62M  398M  14% /boot
/dev/md0               75T  9.8G   75T   1% /raid0
[root@Protocase ~]# cat /proc/mdstat
Personalities : [raid6] [raid5] [raid4]
md0 : active raid6 sdas[44](S) sdar[43](S) sdaq[42] sdap[41] sdao[40] sdan[39] sdam[38] sdal[37] sdak[36] sdaj[35] sdai[34] sdah[33] sdag[32] sdaf[31] sdae[30] sdad[29] sdac[28] sdab[27] sdaa[26] sdz[25] sdy[24] sdx[23] sdw[22] sdv[21] sdu[20] sdt[19] sds[18] sdr[17] sdq[16] sdp[15] sdo[14] sdn[13] sdm[12] sdl[11] sdk[10] sdj[9] sdi[8] sdh[7] sdg[6] sdf[5] sde[4] sdd[3] sdc[2] sdb[1] sda[0]
      80094041856 blocks super 1.2 level 6, 256k chunk, algorithm 2 [43/43] [UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU]
      bitmap: 2/4 pages [8KB], 262144KB chunk

unused devices:
Posted on

Benchmarking disk IO on ext3 vs ext4 vs xfs with fio

With the old database phased out, I figured this was a good time to benchmark IO on it before either repurposing it or mothballing it. In the past I’ve used dd for elementary sequential read/write testing, but I recently found fio which is much more versatile. Apparently developed by FusionIO, fio lets you control concurrency, blocksize and many other parameters and reports lots more data, most notably IOPS.

I created 4 fio config files, basically the same as the one below, for direct / buffered disk access and sequential / random writes. All have 8k blocksize since that’s what Postgres uses by default.


[root@link ~]# cat random-write-test.fio
[random-write]
rw=randwrite
size=5G
direct=1
directory=/msa70/fio/data/
numjobs=5
group_reporting
name=random-write-direct
bs=8k
runtime=10

[root@link ~]# cat sequential-write-test-buf.fio
[sequential-write]
rw=write
size=5G
direct=0
directory=/msa70/fio/data/
numjobs=5
group_reporting
name=sequential-write-buffered
bs=8k
runtime=10

First I ran fio against a freshly created ext3 volume on our HP MSA70 with 24x 10kRPM SAS disks in RAID 10. The mkfs command used was mke2fs -j -m0 /dev/cciss/c0d0. The controller card is a HP P800. Here’s the output:

[wpspoiler name=’fio – ext3 full results’]

[root@link ~]# time fio random-write-test.fio random-write-test-buf.fio sequential-write-test.fio sequential-write-test-buf.fio
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
fio 1.57
Starting 20 processes
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
Jobs: 1 (f=1): [________________W___] [19.8% done] [0K/0K /s] [0 /0  iops] [eta 03m:14s]
random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2447
  write: io=596856KB, bw=56946KB/s, iops=7118 , runt= 10481msec
    clat (usec): min=67 , max=944937 , avg=645.32, stdev=4647.69
     lat (usec): min=67 , max=944937 , avg=645.46, stdev=4647.69
    bw (KB/s) : min=  144, max=47152, per=22.71%, avg=12933.03, stdev=4985.93
  cpu          : usr=0.26%, sys=1.48%, ctx=74614, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/74607/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=12.22%, 250=80.24%, 500=6.59%, 750=0.20%, 1000=0.16%
     lat (msec): 2=0.07%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.10%, 20=0.05%, 50=0.08%
     lat (msec): 100=0.10%, 250=0.14%, 500=0.04%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2452
  write: io=6377.3MB, bw=472902KB/s, iops=59112 , runt= 13809msec
    clat (usec): min=8 , max=4490.8K, avg=77.54, stdev=3751.21
     lat (usec): min=8 , max=4490.8K, avg=77.66, stdev=3751.21
    bw (KB/s) : min=    7, max=438688, per=34.13%, avg=161414.56, stdev=63682.89
  cpu          : usr=2.27%, sys=24.01%, ctx=1596, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/816288/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=0.06%, 20=83.59%, 50=16.19%, 100=0.04%, 250=0.04%
     lat (usec): 500=0.03%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2=0.01%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.01%, 20=0.03%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.01%, 250=0.01%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2000=0.01%, >=2000=0.01%
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2457
  write: io=2832.0KB, bw=286105 B/s, iops=34 , runt= 10136msec
    clat (usec): min=75 , max=1506.6K, avg=157500.69, stdev=96237.55
     lat (usec): min=75 , max=1506.6K, avg=157500.81, stdev=96237.54
    bw (KB/s) : min=    6, max=  444, per=19.58%, avg=54.61, stdev=13.65
  cpu          : usr=0.00%, sys=0.00%, ctx=572, majf=0, minf=140
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/354/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=4.80%, 250=33.05%, 500=0.56%
     lat (msec): 50=1.13%, 100=18.36%, 250=25.99%, 500=9.04%, 750=4.24%
     lat (msec): 1000=1.41%, 2000=1.41%
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2462
  write: io=255624KB, bw=19933KB/s, iops=2491 , runt= 12824msec
    clat (usec): min=7 , max=9411.7K, avg=1443.28, stdev=33091.95
     lat (usec): min=7 , max=9411.7K, avg=1443.38, stdev=33091.95
    bw (KB/s) : min=   31, max=43687, per=29.58%, avg=5896.30, stdev=2696.81
  cpu          : usr=0.05%, sys=0.89%, ctx=600, majf=0, minf=136
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/31953/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=13.51%, 20=77.52%, 50=8.68%, 100=0.07%, 250=0.08%
     lat (usec): 500=0.03%, 750=0.01%
     lat (msec): 4=0.01%, 10=0.01%, 20=0.02%, 50=0.01%, 250=0.01%
     lat (msec): 750=0.02%, 2000=0.01%, >=2000=0.03%

Run status group 0 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=596856KB, aggrb=56946KB/s, minb=58313KB/s, maxb=58313KB/s, mint=10481msec, maxt=10481msec

Run status group 1 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=6377.3MB, aggrb=472902KB/s, minb=484251KB/s, maxb=484251KB/s, mint=13809msec, maxt=13809msec

Run status group 2 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=2832KB, aggrb=279KB/s, minb=286KB/s, maxb=286KB/s, mint=10136msec, maxt=10136msec

Run status group 3 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=255624KB, aggrb=19933KB/s, minb=20411KB/s, maxb=20411KB/s, mint=12824msec, maxt=12824msec

Disk stats (read/write):
  cciss!c0d0: ios=798/24542244, merge=0/937067, ticks=15866/140262853, in_queue=140448875, util=89.71%

real    18m35.082s
user    0m4.328s
sys     5m16.479s
[root@link ~]#

[/wpspoiler]
That’s a lot of data; the most interesting numbers are these:

random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2447
  write: io=596856KB, bw=56946KB/s, iops=7118 , runt= 10481msec
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2452
  write: io=6377.3MB, bw=472902KB/s, iops=59112 , runt= 13809msec
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2457
  write: io=2832.0KB, bw=286105 B/s, iops=34 , runt= 10136msec
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2462
  write: io=255624KB, bw=19933KB/s, iops=2491 , runt= 12824msec

I then reformatted the RAIDed LUN with ext4 with mkfs.ext4 -m0 /dev/cciss/c0d0 and ran the same tests again:
[wpspoiler name=’fio – ext4 full results’]

[root@link ~]# time fio random-write-test.fio random-write-test-buf.fio sequential-write-test.fio sequential-write-test-buf.fio
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
fio 1.57
Starting 20 processes
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
Jobs: 5 (f=5): [_______________WWWWW] [21.5% done] [0K/126.1M /s] [0 /15.9K iops] [eta 02m:30s]
random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2379
  write: io=589392KB, bw=58933KB/s, iops=7366 , runt= 10001msec
    clat (usec): min=77 , max=2522.4K, avg=781.82, stdev=9768.99
     lat (usec): min=77 , max=2522.4K, avg=781.95, stdev=9768.99
    bw (KB/s) : min=  515, max=44176, per=22.05%, avg=12996.62, stdev=5332.75
  cpu          : usr=0.26%, sys=2.86%, ctx=73715, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/73674/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=2.54%, 250=92.13%, 500=4.76%, 750=0.14%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2=0.01%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.07%, 20=0.04%, 50=0.07%
     lat (msec): 100=0.09%, 250=0.11%, 500=0.03%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2000=0.01%, >=2000=0.01%
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2384
  write: io=6707.1MB, bw=670727KB/s, iops=83840 , runt= 10241msec
    clat (usec): min=7 , max=1582.5K, avg=57.04, stdev=1910.33
     lat (usec): min=7 , max=1582.5K, avg=57.15, stdev=1910.33
    bw (KB/s) : min=   30, max=518784, per=25.08%, avg=168240.26, stdev=84472.16
  cpu          : usr=2.51%, sys=25.56%, ctx=35766, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/858614/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=2.14%, 20=91.72%, 50=5.11%, 100=0.31%, 250=0.15%
     lat (usec): 500=0.19%, 750=0.15%, 1000=0.09%
     lat (msec): 2=0.08%, 4=0.03%, 10=0.01%, 20=0.01%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.01%, 250=0.01%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2000=0.01%
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2389
  write: io=839760KB, bw=83959KB/s, iops=10494 , runt= 10002msec
    clat (usec): min=70 , max=300244 , avg=473.09, stdev=3815.84
     lat (usec): min=71 , max=300244 , avg=473.22, stdev=3815.84
    bw (KB/s) : min= 8198, max=30528, per=20.27%, avg=17014.88, stdev=1677.78
  cpu          : usr=0.32%, sys=3.15%, ctx=104986, majf=0, minf=140
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/104970/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=73.60%, 250=26.18%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%
     lat (msec): 50=0.01%, 100=0.01%, 250=0.18%, 500=0.02%
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2394
  write: io=1730.7MB, bw=163683KB/s, iops=20460 , runt= 10827msec
    clat (usec): min=7 , max=7649.9K, avg=220.41, stdev=12535.19
     lat (usec): min=7 , max=7649.9K, avg=220.52, stdev=12535.19
    bw (KB/s) : min=   27, max=331055, per=35.92%, avg=58788.88, stdev=27863.44
  cpu          : usr=0.42%, sys=5.54%, ctx=4119, majf=0, minf=136
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/221525/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=50.94%, 20=47.34%, 50=1.45%, 100=0.18%, 250=0.05%
     lat (usec): 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2=0.01%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.01%, 20=0.01%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.01%, 250=0.01%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.01%
     lat (msec): 2000=0.01%, >=2000=0.01%

Run status group 0 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=589392KB, aggrb=58933KB/s, minb=60347KB/s, maxb=60347KB/s, mint=10001msec, maxt=10001msec

Run status group 1 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=6707.1MB, aggrb=670726KB/s, minb=686824KB/s, maxb=686824KB/s, mint=10241msec, maxt=10241msec

Run status group 2 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=839760KB, aggrb=83959KB/s, minb=85974KB/s, maxb=85974KB/s, mint=10002msec, maxt=10002msec

Run status group 3 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=1730.7MB, aggrb=163683KB/s, minb=167611KB/s, maxb=167611KB/s, mint=10827msec, maxt=10827msec

Disk stats (read/write):
  cciss!c0d0: ios=52/276341, merge=0/553601, ticks=224/1731709, in_queue=1735311, util=94.47%

real    0m42.218s
user    0m1.812s
sys     0m19.028s
[root@link ~]#

[/wpspoiler]
Summary numbers:

random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2379
  write: io=589392KB, bw=58933KB/s, iops=7366 , runt= 10001msec
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2384
  write: io=6707.1MB, bw=670727KB/s, iops=83840 , runt= 10241msec
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2389
  write: io=839760KB, bw=83959KB/s, iops=10494 , runt= 10002msec
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2394
  write: io=1730.7MB, bw=163683KB/s, iops=20460 , runt= 10827msec

This is just one run of each test, so not very scientific, but it does look pretty clear that ext4 outperforms ext3 (I actually did run the test several times but didn’t collect the results, they were pretty consistent though). What the test doesn’t show, but you can see from the time output is that each ext3 test took over 4 minutes to run while the ext4 tests each took about 10-12 seconds. In the ext3 tests, each “file1: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)” line took nearly a minute; in the ext4 tests they were essentially instant.

This is nothing groundbreaking, I was just playing around with fio and figured I’d post the results in case anyone else was curious. I did notice some oddities though, like the fact that random buffered writes appear to be faster than even sequential buffered writes, on both ext3 and ext4 – on ext4, showing 670 MB/s random buffered writes and 83k IOPS. That doesn’t seem to make much sense, but I’ll leave the tea-leaf reading to someone else.

Addendum: I ran the test with XFS, just for fun. Overall, it was significantly faster than ext3, but not as fast as ext4, though sequential buffered writes were much faster than either ext3 or ext4.

[wpspoiler name=’fio – xfs full results’]

[root@link ~]# mkfs.xfs -f -b size=4k /dev/cciss/c0d0
meta-data=/dev/cciss/c0d0        isize=256    agcount=4, agsize=107506378 blks
         =                       sectsz=512   attr=2
data     =                       bsize=4096   blocks=430025510, imaxpct=5
         =                       sunit=0      swidth=0 blks
naming   =version 2              bsize=4096   ascii-ci=0
log      =internal log           bsize=4096   blocks=209973, version=2
         =                       sectsz=512   sunit=0 blks, lazy-count=1
realtime =none                   extsz=4096   blocks=0, rtextents=0
[root@link ~]# mount -v -t xfs /dev/cciss/c0d0 /msa70/
/dev/cciss/c0d0 on /msa70 type xfs (rw)
[root@link ~]# mkdir -p /msa70/fio/data
(reverse-i-search)`f': mkdir -p /msa70/^Co/data
[root@link ~]# time fio random-write-test.fio random-write-test-buf.fio sequential-write-test.fio sequential-write-test-buf.fio
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-direct: (g=0): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
random-write-buf: (g=1): rw=randwrite, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-direct: (g=2): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
...
sequential-write-buffered: (g=3): rw=write, bs=8K-8K/8K-8K, ioengine=sync, iodepth=1
fio 1.57
Starting 20 processes
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
random-write-buf: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-direct: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
sequential-write-buffered: Laying out IO file(s) (1 file(s) / 5120MB)
Jobs: 5 (f=5): [_______________WWWWW] [91.3% done] [0K/143.4M /s] [0 /17.1K iops] [eta 00m:26s]
random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2662
  write: io=416920KB, bw=41688KB/s, iops=5210 , runt= 10001msec
    clat (usec): min=83 , max=1592.6K, avg=1013.62, stdev=10137.19
     lat (usec): min=83 , max=1592.6K, avg=1013.77, stdev=10137.19
    bw (KB/s) : min=    7, max=23184, per=22.46%, avg=9363.32, stdev=2852.49
  cpu          : usr=0.31%, sys=1.61%, ctx=106802, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/52115/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=0.06%, 250=4.55%, 500=87.85%, 750=4.23%, 1000=0.70%
     lat (msec): 2=2.01%, 4=0.13%, 10=0.24%, 20=0.07%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.03%, 250=0.06%, 500=0.03%, 750=0.02%, 2000=0.02%
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2667
  write: io=6557.9MB, bw=27876KB/s, iops=3484 , runt=240892msec
    clat (usec): min=7 , max=237984K, avg=1631.10, stdev=257906.92
     lat (usec): min=7 , max=237984K, avg=1631.22, stdev=257906.92
    bw (KB/s) : min=    0, max=628832, per=1222.74%, avg=340851.04, stdev=70996.06
  cpu          : usr=0.13%, sys=1.33%, ctx=24945, majf=0, minf=134
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/839397/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=18.02%, 20=79.39%, 50=2.19%, 100=0.18%, 250=0.07%
     lat (usec): 500=0.03%, 750=0.01%, 1000=0.04%
     lat (msec): 2=0.02%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.02%, 20=0.01%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.01%, 250=0.01%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 2000=0.01%
     lat (msec): >=2000=0.01%
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2677
  write: io=519056KB, bw=51895KB/s, iops=6486 , runt= 10002msec
    clat (usec): min=81 , max=242925 , avg=825.67, stdev=3980.13
     lat (usec): min=81 , max=242925 , avg=825.81, stdev=3980.13
    bw (KB/s) : min=   59, max=20029, per=19.03%, avg=9873.41, stdev=2128.50
  cpu          : usr=0.23%, sys=1.43%, ctx=129921, majf=0, minf=140
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/64882/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 100=60.60%, 250=38.63%, 500=0.01%
     lat (msec): 10=0.10%, 50=0.11%, 100=0.23%, 250=0.32%
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2682
  write: io=7688.1MB, bw=770776KB/s, iops=96347 , runt= 10215msec
    clat (usec): min=6 , max=1727.2K, avg=53.67, stdev=1633.96
     lat (usec): min=6 , max=1727.2K, avg=53.78, stdev=1633.96
    bw (KB/s) : min= 5340, max=704608, per=21.28%, avg=164049.10, stdev=87065.00
  cpu          : usr=2.15%, sys=19.54%, ctx=16284, majf=0, minf=136
  IO depths    : 1=100.0%, 2=0.0%, 4=0.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     submit    : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     complete  : 0=0.0%, 4=100.0%, 8=0.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, 64=0.0%, >=64=0.0%
     issued r/w/d: total=0/984185/0, short=0/0/0
     lat (usec): 10=41.97%, 20=56.42%, 50=1.10%, 100=0.23%, 250=0.10%
     lat (usec): 500=0.05%, 750=0.02%, 1000=0.03%
     lat (msec): 2=0.01%, 4=0.01%, 10=0.02%, 20=0.01%, 50=0.01%
     lat (msec): 100=0.01%, 250=0.01%, 500=0.01%, 750=0.01%, 2000=0.01%

Run status group 0 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=416920KB, aggrb=41687KB/s, minb=42688KB/s, maxb=42688KB/s, mint=10001msec, maxt=10001msec

Run status group 1 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=6557.9MB, aggrb=27876KB/s, minb=28545KB/s, maxb=28545KB/s, mint=240892msec, maxt=240892msec

Run status group 2 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=519056KB, aggrb=51895KB/s, minb=53140KB/s, maxb=53140KB/s, mint=10002msec, maxt=10002msec

Run status group 3 (all jobs):
  WRITE: io=7688.1MB, aggrb=770776KB/s, minb=789274KB/s, maxb=789274KB/s, mint=10215msec, maxt=10215msec

Disk stats (read/write):
  cciss!c0d0: ios=8/836060, merge=0/549215, ticks=11/36458428, in_queue=36468678, util=98.88%

real    4m31.948s
user    0m2.692s
sys     0m24.351s
[root@link ~]#

[/wpspoiler]

XFS abridged:

random-write-direct: (groupid=0, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2662
  write: io=416920KB, bw=41688KB/s, iops=5210 , runt= 10001msec
random-write-buf: (groupid=1, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2667
  write: io=6557.9MB, bw=27876KB/s, iops=3484 , runt=240892msec
sequential-write-direct: (groupid=2, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2677
  write: io=519056KB, bw=51895KB/s, iops=6486 , runt= 10002msec
sequential-write-buffered: (groupid=3, jobs=5): err= 0: pid=2682
  write: io=7688.1MB, bw=770776KB/s, iops=96347 , runt= 10215msec