Disc Array Speed Tests w Cache & Journaled vs Non

[Walter Biscardi]

[Kevin Wild] “Finally, I re-initialized the new 5 x 750 Gig RAID:
-Extended ONLY (non-journaled), 128 MEG CACHE
Write: 163.7 MB/s
Read: 169.5 MB/s”

Wow, that’s pretty slow for 5 – 750 drives striped together in that configuration. My CalDigit S2VR HD is the same config, 3.75TB with 5 drives and we’re getting 190+ Write and 230 Read. We’re set for 128MB Cache here as well.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
https://www.biscardicreative.com
HD Editorial & Animation for Food Network’s “Good Eats”
HD Editorial for “Assignment Earth”

“I reject your reality and substitute my own!” – Adam Savage, Mythbusters

[Bob Zelin]

Kevin –
WELCOME to dealing with the real manufacturers of these drive arrays – Hitachi, Seagate and Western Digital.

This is great information, and I have not seen these slow numbers, but I have heard about them.
This is the kind of crap that plagues companies like Cal Digit, Sonnet, and others. It’s not a Sonnet issue, it’s the drives – and I certainly don’t have an answer (no one does but Seagate) – SO –
Pop out one of your new Seagate 750 Gig drives, and please post the EXACT model # of the drive – there will
probably be two numbers on the drives –

I will give you an example.
Barracuda 7200.10 750 Gbytes
ST3750640A8
P/N: 9BJ148-305 (that 305 suffix is real important info to me – what is yours)
Firmware: 3.AAE

PLEASE POST YOUR NUMBERS on your drives

by the way – for your tests, use the larger file size of 1920×1080 10 bit, even though you are doing SD video only, which corresponds to 720×486.

AND don’t use Extended (Journaled) – you will suffer as your drives get full. This is the default only
for a boot drive, not a media drive. This applies to the XServe RAID as well.

Bob Zelin

[Kevin Wild]

Okay, I redid the test on the 5 x 750 Gig array using AJA’s system test with 1920×1080 10 bit RGB and got significantly different results and probably more on par with what Walter mentioned he got:
-Extended, non-journaled, striped
-WRITE: 188.9 MB/s
-READ: 222.3 MB/s

I reran the 720×486 8-bit tests and got the same as I posted before…significantly slower at 167 and 173. Very strange. I wouldn’t think file size would make such a difference, but I guess it does.

Bob, the info on one of the drives:
Seagate 7200.10, 750 gbytes
S/N: 3QDOPE8N
ST3750640AS
p/n: 9BJ148-308
Firmware: 3.AAJ
Date code: 07251
Site Code: AMK

Thanks, guys. I guess we’ll just go for it and see how this puppy holds up with 5 streams of uncompressed SD multicam for this gig I have coming up for Discovery Health.

Kevin Wild
http://www.drawbridge.tv

[Bob Zelin]

Kevin –
I am glad to see your speed results.

you mentioned that you had the Sonnet Fusion 500P chassis, but you did not mention your card. If you owned the Cal Digit FASTA-4 series SATA host card ($299), and now restriped your drives with the 128k block size (with the Cal Digit card only, not the Sonnet), you would get even faster speeds.

I would not lie to you.

Bob Zelin

[Kevin Wild]

Good to know. I may do that for the next round of purchases, but for now, it is the Sonnet host card.

Thanks.

Kevin
http://www.drawbridge.tv