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(!)READ(!) much slower than Write!? - How comes; MSA20 DAS to DL380 G4

 
Koko-Rezachev
Frequent Collector

(!)READ(!) much slower than Write!? - How comes; MSA20 DAS to DL380 G4

I Googled very extensively but all performance problems are referencing the WRITE speed and I didn't see a single case where the READ speed was discussed. It was ALWAYS assumed that the read is much faster than the write (which should be) and there are many comments how to boost the write speed (or the speed in general).

 

My problem is the opposite:

  - WRITE speed is OK (or at least acceptable for my purpose).

  - READ  speed - disaster, how comes...?

 

Majority of the data on the storage are huge files (>= 10 GB each).

 

I will write the configuration and the stats on next post.

 

BR: Koko

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Koko-Rezachev
Frequent Collector

(!)READ(!) much slower than Write!? - How comes; MSA20 DAS to DL380 G4

The configuration is:

 

Server:   1x HP ProLiant DL380 G4, SA 6i Controller (embedded) Firmware: 2.84 (latest)

                + 1x PCI-X SA 6400 Controller 128MB, Firmware 2.84 (latest)

                + 1x PCI-X SA 6400 Controller 256MB, Firmware 2.84 (latest)  --> connected to MSA20

                + 4x 72GB SCSI disks in RAID5 (around 208GB)

 

Storage:  2x HP MSA20 Enclosure, controller memory - 128 (sATA)

                 1x HP MSA20 Enclosure, controller memory - 256 (sATA)  [this one is used]

Used      only 1 MSA20 (256MB) for now with 12x sATA, each sATA is 2TB (24 TB in total).

 

DL380

 

RAID5 for the DL380 is not ideal but I really don't care for its performance. I need to run simply samba and ftp. Yet, it gives way better performance than MSA20 (in both read and write).

 

MSA20

 

On this storage I need capacity, not availability. Frankly, I also don't need performance but the read speed is simply a nightmare.

Due to 2TB LUN limitation obviously the best choice is to "wrap" each sATA with RAID0 array --> single LUN --> single partition --> Mount to NTFS folder.

 

Logical Drive and NTFS setup

 

MSA20 Controller write cache - Enabled (BBWC).

Batteries are OK and charged.

Firmware Version: 2.08 (latest)

 

  Each RAID0 and LUN are:

     - 32 KB stripe size (32k Full stripe as well due to RAID0)

     - 32 Sectors/Track

     - Logical Drive cache - Enabled.

     - NTFS Cluster size - 32K