topic Re: NetRaid 1M in Disk Enclosures

NetRaid 1M

Patrick van Vugt — Mon, 24 Sep 2001 13:35:40 GMT

Hello,

In two (new) servers (E800, LC2000) we have a NetRaid 1M installed.
E800: RAID 1
LC2000: RAID 5

On both systems is SCO Openserver Enterprise 5.0.6 installed.
Harddisk performance on both systems is very poor!
When we make a 200MB file without the RAID-controller, this is done in 20sec. Same test with controller: 2 minutes! This is not good.
I think it has something todo with the driver?!?!

Firmware controller; H.01.08
Firmware HDD: 80-CX03
These are all the latest.
SCO Driver is from the Netserver CD (M.04.00)

Please help, I've got two servers which are not performing as they should!

Thanks,
Patrick van Vugt

Re: NetRaid 1M

Xavier Gutierrez — Mon, 24 Sep 2001 16:01:02 GMT

Sorry, but I don't understand your question.

What do you mean when you say making files with/without the RAID controller?

Regards,
Xavi

Re: NetRaid 1M

Diana Thompson — Mon, 24 Sep 2001 18:30:09 GMT

If you are in the USA I suggest you call the HP Support Center at 970-635-1000, IF outside the US, call your local Support Center for help.

Re: NetRaid 1M

Patrick van Vugt — Tue, 25 Sep 2001 05:47:02 GMT

What I mean by with/without controller,

First I use the on-board SCSI-controller to make the test file of 200MB
Second I use the HP NetRaid 1M controller to make the test file of 200MB.

200MB with on-board SCSI: 20sec
200MB with NetRaid 1M: 120sec

That's 6x longer!

Re: NetRaid 1M

Ben_16 — Fri, 26 Oct 2001 06:11:42 GMT

Hardware raid is slower than SCSI. Please call HP for more details. There is a tool call the Performance Assesment Test, http://www.hp.com/cposupport/information_storage/software/pat12.exe.html which can show you what exactly the performance is.

Re: NetRaid 1M

Paul Draycott — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 08:24:06 GMT

I have exactly the same problem on and E800 and LH6000.

Performance is very poor on the RAID controller.

Does anyone know the reason why or have a solution for this ?

Re: NetRaid 1M

Patrick van Vugt — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 08:34:32 GMT

I've found a workaround, but I must say this is NOT the solution of HP!!!

There is a amirdmon-process that you should kill. You can disable to startup the process by editing /etc/conf/rc.d/amird

Then you must set the write policy to write-back. This is the tricky part! Because the 1M doesn't support a battery backup you should have a good UPS!!!

We haven't received or heard anything official from HP yet. When I got a official solution I will post it here.

Re: NetRaid 1M

Paul Draycott — Tue, 13 Nov 2001 12:41:48 GMT

Many thanks, that appears to have worked !. I assume you have logged this and are progressing with HP ?

If you aren't, I will !

Regards

Paul

Re: NetRaid 1M

Rick Hoyle — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 05:37:07 GMT

I'm experiencing similar dismal performance using a NetRAID 2M (64M Cache w/battery) on SCO OpenServer 5.0.6. System is LC2000 with 3-drive RAID5 scattered on 2 channels.
Are you saying I can simply kill the amird daemon and the system will continue to run? Do I use the firmware setup feature to modify the "write-back" setting?
What will happen if a drive dies? Isn't it the amird's job to interact with the O/S on such occasions?

This information is invaluable, as the client is upgrading from an older Netserver that is currently running FASTER!!

Thanks much.

Re: NetRaid 1M

Dan Moesch — Wed, 13 Feb 2002 19:30:19 GMT

You always want write-back cache turned on for a Raid card, huge performance difference. Especially if you have a battery on the card. You can turn this on using the FAST software during the boot sequence with "ctrl a" when the card is initializing

Re: NetRaid 1M

Christian Schmidt — Fri, 08 Mar 2002 02:13:02 GMT

Hello !

I have the same problem with two new Netservers LC2000 with 3x18 GB RAID 5 on 1M Controller. Running under SCO O.S. 5.0.6

The first system (10 - 15 users) was waiting in Application up to 5 seconds (Disc-Access). After tuning kernel (NBUF, NHBUF) system was a little bit better.
After changing Array-Controller to write-back system-performance is better, not good.

For this kind of Application I never before have to tune kernel or set write-back.
e.g. 40 user, same application, Netserver LH3, Symbios-Logic on Board, RAID 5 --> SCO 5.0.4 or 5.0.5 --> absolutely no problems !!?

My second system LC2000, other application, same O.S. (5.0.6), 25 user is very very slow.
Kernel-tuning and write-back had only a little effect, cause the application search in 3 large files (800 - 900 MB per file).
Also copy files between directories is very slow.

Are these problems from LC2000, from HP Net-Raid 1M or from SCO 5.0.6 (Driver)?

What's about the amirdmon?
What's about RAID-Messages, if the daemon didn't run ?

Does anyone has a solution ?

Sorry, but my english is not so good :-)

Thanks
Christian Schmidt