Hi All! I'm using LVM for a long time, usually on non RAID systems to simplify storage space modifications ... recently I configured a nice system (Dual Athlon, with 4 18.2G U160 SCSI IBM (DDYS-T18350N) disks on an Adaptec 29160N Ultra160. Because I had some troubles with the Adaptec/SCSI cabeling I reduced the bus speed to 40Mhz, which gives 80MB/s transfer (theoretically) via SCSI, each disc seems to do about 15MB/s (which seems a little low). I decided to arrange the 4 discs in a RAID 5 array to gain some speedup and redundancy (which resulted in about 33MB/s burst, 25% below the, again theoretical limit of 45MB/s). Ontop of the RAID 5 array I configured LVM 1.0.7 to create several partitions for further use ... Now what happened was, that the performance (read) dropped to about 18MB/s burst, which wasn't what I expected at all ... Has anybody any explanations why the LVM layer eats up about 45% of the available throughput? (in this configuration?) raw disc md(raid5) lvm on md ----------------------------------------------------- hdparm 14694.40 34129.92 18667.52 dd 1024k 14988.22 34732.56 18647.98 dd 32k 15516.06 33945.48 18862.67 best, Herbert --- Technical Information --- 2.4.21-rc2 kernel (with 1.0.7 LVM patch, among others) May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: SCSI subsystem driver Revision: 1.00 May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: scsi0 : Adaptec AIC7XXX EISA/VLB/PCI SCSI HBA DRIVER, Rev 6.2.33 May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: <Adaptec 29160N Ultra160 SCSI adapter> May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: aic7892: Ultra160 Wide Channel A, SCSI Id=7, 32/253 SCBs May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: blk: queue c3667e18, I/O limit 4095Mb (mask 0xffffffff) May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: (scsi0:A:0): 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit) May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: (scsi0:A:1): 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit) May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: (scsi0:A:2): 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit) May 11 05:26:52 phoenix kernel: (scsi0:A:3): 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 63, 16bit) raiddev /dev/md/0 raid-level 5 nr-raid-disks 4 nr-spare-disks 0 chunk-size 32 parity-algorithm left-symmetric persistent-superblock 1 device /dev/hd0/part5 raid-disk 0 device /dev/hd1/part5 raid-disk 1 device /dev/hd2/part5 raid-disk 2 device /dev/hd3/part5 raid-disk 3 pvcreate /dev/md/0 vgcreate -A y vgs /dev/md/0 lvcreate -C y -L 3G -n usr -Z y vgs --- Tests --- # hdparm -tT /dev/hd0/disc /dev/hd0/disc: Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.50 seconds =256.00 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 4.46 seconds = 14.35 MB/sec # time dd if=/dev/hd0/disc of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=1024 1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out 0.00user 16.98system 1:09.96elapsed 24%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (111major+274minor)pagefaults 0swaps # time dd if=/dev/hd0/disc of=/dev/null bs=32k count=32768 32768+0 records in 32768+0 records out 0.02user 14.66system 1:07.58elapsed 21%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (110major+26minor)pagefaults 0swaps ------------ # hdparm -tT /dev/md/0 /dev/md/0: Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.49 seconds =261.22 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.92 seconds = 33.33 MB/sec # time dd if=/dev/md/0 of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=1024 1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out 0.00user 12.09system 0:30.19elapsed 40%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (111major+274minor)pagefaults 0swaps # time dd if=/dev/md/0 of=/dev/null bs=32k count=32768 32768+0 records in 32768+0 records out 0.00user 10.52system 0:30.89elapsed 34%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (110major+26minor)pagefaults 0swaps ------------- # hdparm -tT /dev/vgs/usr /dev/vgs/usr: Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.50 seconds =256.00 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.51 seconds = 18.23 MB/sec # time dd if=/dev/vgs/usr of=/dev/null bs=1024k count=1024 1024+0 records in 1024+0 records out 0.01user 18.66system 0:56.23elapsed 33%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (111major+274minor)pagefaults 0swaps # time dd if=/dev/vgs/usr of=/dev/null bs=32k count=32768 32768+0 records in 32768+0 records out 0.07user 13.43system 0:55.59elapsed 24%CPU (0avgtext+0avgdata 0maxresident)k 0inputs+0outputs (110major+26minor)pagefaults 0swaps _______________________________________________ linux-lvm mailing list linux-lvm@sistina.com http://lists.sistina.com/mailman/listinfo/linux-lvm read the LVM HOW-TO at http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/