I love FreeBSD. It's been my go-to OS since I first switched to it from BSDi many many years ago. However, I hate to stick with something just because I've always used it. Technology changes too quickly to make lifelong bonds. While I prefer FreeBSD, I ultimately will choose what gets the job done the best.
ZFS under FreeBSD has always progressed nicely, but it is obviously behind Solaris, seeing how Sum/Oracle are the creators of ZFS. The ZFS v28 patch is currently being tested for FreeBSD-8.2 and 9, but not released yet.
While I realize these are pre-releases, I wanted to test the performance I could expect from FreeBSD vs Solaris for my SAN that I'm building. Once I put this SAN into regular use, I won't easily be able to switch to another OS, or do a lot of tweaking with it.
This is not just a test of ZFS implementations - It tests the hard disk subsystem, memory, NFS, ethernet drivers, and ZFS to give me a combined test result, which is what I really care about - How fast can my SAN accept and serve up data to my ESXi boxes.
I've seperately been benchmarking FreeBSD 8.2-PRE and 9.0-CURRENT with both the v28 ZFS patch, and with their native v15 ZFS implementations. I'll make that a seperate blog entry a bit later on, but for now, I'm choosing the fastest performer from the v28 portion of those tests, which was FreeBSD 9.0-CURENT.
My test environment is as follows:
ESX Box: Dell PowerEdge T710 w/96Gig
SAN Box: Dell PowerEdge Y710 w/24Gig
Network: Intel X510DA2 10Gbe Ethernet in each box, direct attached
SAS Card: Areca 1880ix w/4G Cache
Enclosure: SuperMicro SC847-JBOD2 (Dual 6Gbps Backplanes)
Drives: Seagate 1.5 TB SATA, 5 disk raidz, no log or cache
Test Software: Performance Test 6.1 run on a Windows 2003 VM
Solaris 11 Express svn_151a
903 MBs - Fileserver
466 MBs - Webserver
53 MBs - Workstation
201 MBs - Database
FreeBSD-9.0 Current @ Dec 12th 2010 w/v28 Patch, all Debug off
95 MBs - Fileserver
60 MBs - Webserver
30 MBs - Workstation
32 MBs - Database
Wow. Notice the difference? I didn't believe it myself at first, but I tried it again and again, I watched the packet traffic accross the Intel card with iftop, and then I ran seperate benchmarks with iometer just to make sure it wasn't something silly in Performance Meter. I always received similar results - Solaris 11 Express can move some serious data in comparison to FreeBSD 9.0
At this stage, I don't know if it's a problem with the Intel driver holding back FreeBSD or not. You'll notice that the Workstation test is the only one that is compariable between FreeBSD and ZFS, which is made up of a lot of sync random read/writes that brings any ZFS implementation to it's knees.
The thing is: I don't care if it's the Intel driver, the memory sub-system, or whatever - In the end, I need the best performance delivered to my ESXi boxes, and Solaris 11 Express can deliver where FreeBSD isn't ready just yet.
I do fully expect FreeBSD to catch up, but for now, I'm strongly considering spendng the $$ on a Solaris 11 Express license so I can run it as my SAN OS. Solaris' easy CIFS implementation is another bonus for my SAN - it was delivering 78 MBs speeds when my FreeBSD/samba implementation was at 35MBs.
Showing posts with label Solaris 11 Express. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Solaris 11 Express. Show all posts
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Areca 1880 Firmware v1.49 improves speed in Web Management, Solaris 11
I just applied the 1.49 firmware update for my Areca 1880, and the speed difference for user interface interaction is noticeable.
You'll have to download it from their Taiwan FTP site, which is listed on their support page.
The web console is now quite snappy, where before it was painful. In Solaris 11 Express, I'm able to list my 26+ drives without delay, where before it would take 5-10 seconds to give me a full drive inventory, which was leading to some serious delays in zpool status commands.
When applying your update via the web console, make sure to apply all 4 files individually. It's not smart, it won't ask for the other files, but it does need them if you want to be fully updated across the board.
I ran a set of iometer tests before and after my upgrade, and I can't detect any change in drive speed, just user interface speed.
You'll have to download it from their Taiwan FTP site, which is listed on their support page.
The web console is now quite snappy, where before it was painful. In Solaris 11 Express, I'm able to list my 26+ drives without delay, where before it would take 5-10 seconds to give me a full drive inventory, which was leading to some serious delays in zpool status commands.
When applying your update via the web console, make sure to apply all 4 files individually. It's not smart, it won't ask for the other files, but it does need them if you want to be fully updated across the board.
I ran a set of iometer tests before and after my upgrade, and I can't detect any change in drive speed, just user interface speed.
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