3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Rev. Jeffrey Paul]

I'm building an nfs server to export home directories to a few login 
servers used somewhat heavily by a few hundred people.  Additionally, on 
the array will be a bunch of web content and mysql data files.

I'm currently thinking of a few different configurations, all using four
drives in the 180-250gb range.  I could get sata or udma drives, i could
go raid5 or raid10, and i could do this in linux software raid (using,
say, a pair of promise ultra100s to give me four udma ports, or with an
SATA card), using 3ware's UDMA four-port escalade, or with 3ware's new
sata escalade.

What are the compelling reasons for using sata over udma?  I've had really 
good experiences with linux software raid, but always in small workgroup 
or personal file servers.  I'm wondering if this sort of big, random, 
heavy load will drag down an otherwise speedy box.  Is it worth it to just 
drop the extra $300 and go with hardware raid?  as quality as linux 
software raid is, i'm somehow still more comfortable just leaving it to 
hardware.

what sort of ideas or experiences can you guys share?

i'm going for cost first (i've got a $1k budget or so), reliability and 
stability second, and speed third.

-j

--
--------------------------------------------------------
 Rev. Jeffrey Paul    -datavibe-     sneak@datavibe.net
   aim:x736e65616b   pgp:0x15FA257E   phone:8777483467
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--------------------------------------------------------

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Jeff Garzik]

Rev. Jeffrey Paul wrote:
> I'm building an nfs server to export home directories to a few login 
> servers used somewhat heavily by a few hundred people.  Additionally, on 
> the array will be a bunch of web content and mysql data files.
> 
> I'm currently thinking of a few different configurations, all using four
> drives in the 180-250gb range.  I could get sata or udma drives, i could
> go raid5 or raid10, and i could do this in linux software raid (using,
> say, a pair of promise ultra100s to give me four udma ports, or with an
> SATA card), using 3ware's UDMA four-port escalade, or with 3ware's new
> sata escalade.


3ware hardware is really nice, so that would be a good choice.

But...  I am a bit biased:  I almost always prefer software RAID over 
hardware RAID.  Much more flexibility to move disks between systems, 
choose controller(s) you like, etc.

In theory performance of hardware RAID can be better than software RAID. 
  In practice, only a few hardware RAID controllers actually achieve this.

	Jeff

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Holger Kiehl]

On Wed, 18 Feb 2004, Rev. Jeffrey Paul wrote:

> 
> I'm building an nfs server to export home directories to a few login 
> servers used somewhat heavily by a few hundred people.  Additionally, on 
> the array will be a bunch of web content and mysql data files.
> 
> I'm currently thinking of a few different configurations, all using four
> drives in the 180-250gb range.  I could get sata or udma drives, i could
> go raid5 or raid10, and i could do this in linux software raid (using,
> say, a pair of promise ultra100s to give me four udma ports, or with an
> SATA card), using 3ware's UDMA four-port escalade, or with 3ware's new
> sata escalade.
> 
> What are the compelling reasons for using sata over udma?
>
For now none, really. Only that in future it will be more and more difficult
to get UDMA drives. But this might take a long time before this really
becomes a problem. SATA II will bring a real advantage.

> I've had really good experiences with linux software raid, but always
> in small workgroup or personal file servers.  I'm wondering if this sort
> of big, random, heavy load will drag down an otherwise speedy box.
>
I have a system running for nearly three years distributing some 2.3 million
files with 200GB daily. This is with linux software raid and have encountered
absolutly no problems. During the same period another system (not linux) with
a similar workload but with hardware raid has failed twice, once makeing
all data useless.

> Is it worth it to just drop the extra $300 and go with hardware raid?
>
In my opinion no. Most of the cheaper hardware raids are really just
software raid solutions. For the more expansive once always remember
you will always need drivers and there is no guarentee that you
will get them in two or three years. Some vendors do no longer exist
or no longer support that product.

Also don't worry about the slightly higher CPU usage of software raid.
The time spend by most application is by waiting for IO from disk/raid,
so any time gained here (software raid is faster then hardware raid) will
easily make up the lost CPU time.

Regards,
Holger

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Joshua Baker-LePain]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 at 11:49am, Holger Kiehl wrote

> In my opinion no. Most of the cheaper hardware raids are really just
> software raid solutions. For the more expansive once always remember
> you will always need drivers and there is no guarentee that you
> will get them in two or three years. Some vendors do no longer exist
> or no longer support that product.

I fully agree on avoiding cheap "hardware" RAID cards.  Regarding drivers 
going away, though, the 3ware drivers are open source and have been in the 
kernel for a long time.  If 3ware were to disappear (unlikely), I'd be 
willing to bet that the drivers stay supported by the community.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Rev. Jeffrey Paul]

On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:06:32AM -0500, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
>
> I fully agree on avoiding cheap "hardware" RAID cards.  Regarding drivers 
> going away, though, the 3ware drivers are open source and have been in the 
> kernel for a long time.  If 3ware were to disappear (unlikely), I'd be 
> willing to bet that the drivers stay supported by the community.
> 

I have always avoided the promise fasttrak cards for exactly that 
reason ("hardware" being in quotes).  It's my understanding that 
they're not much more than their udma cards with drivers that do most 
of the RAIDing.

It was also my understanding that the 3ware cards are true hardware 
raid and are up to the task of something like this, which would also 
explain why they're 4x the cost.

I am looking at a four disk raid5 or raid10, and it seems like 
the interrupt load from four drives on four channels might be a bit 
excesive.  I'm going to be running critical services on the machine 
that the drives are in (namely mysql and nfs) and don't want to worry 
about performance.

Am I thinking about this the wrong way?

-j

--
--------------------------------------------------------
 Rev. Jeffrey Paul    -datavibe-     sneak@datavibe.net
   aim:x736e65616b   pgp:0x15FA257E   phone:8777483467
    70E0 B896 D5F3 8BF4 4BEE 2CCF EF2F BA28 15FA 257E
--------------------------------------------------------

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Michael]

> On Thu, Feb 19, 2004 at 07:06:32AM -0500, Joshua Baker-LePain wrote:
> >
> > I fully agree on avoiding cheap "hardware" RAID cards.  Regarding drivers 
> > going away, though, the 3ware drivers are open source and have been in the 
> > kernel for a long time.  If 3ware were to disappear (unlikely), I'd be 
> > willing to bet that the drivers stay supported by the community.
> > 
> 
> I have always avoided the promise fasttrak cards for exactly that
> reason ("hardware" being in quotes).  It's my understanding that
> they're not much more than their udma cards with drivers that do
> most of the RAIDing.
> 
> It was also my understanding that the 3ware cards are true hardware
> raid and are up to the task of something like this, which would also
> explain why they're 4x the cost.
> 

Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really 
a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims. Usually these 
microprocessors are stretched to the limit to handle the throughput 
of modern udam drives. I don't know but I suspect that the small 
overhead use in the mmu for software raid has far more and faster 
throughput than any of these dedicated microprocessors..... and, you 
can see the code and know it is bug free or will be if you report the 
bug. I am the unhappy owner of several Adaptec raid cards that have 
onboard processors to handle not only raid, but command processing 
for the scsi bus. These turkeys have micro-code bugs that cause a 
variety of problem for which there is no workaround or solution other 
than trashing the cards. Don't get me wrong, I thing the 3ware 
product is exceptionally good, I just wouldn't use the raid code 
given the choice of linux software raid. 

Currently running 10 linux software raid boxes -- mix of raid 1 and 
raid 5. Yes, I'm biased :-)

Michael
Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Ricky Beam]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Michael wrote:
>Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
>a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims.

3ware has custom designed matrix switch chips to handle each IDE drive.
This *alone* is worth the cost of the card.  The RAID parity calculations
are also done in hardware (not a bunch of CPU xor's.)  You'd be surprised how
much data a small "slow" processor can move when properly programmed.

>These turkeys have micro-code bugs that cause a
>variety of problem for which there is no workaround or solution other
>than trashing the cards.

Exactly what bugs?  I've used a number of hardware SCSI RAID cards (none
by Adaptec however -- some that are now owned by Adapatec) and all of them
work properly -- as long as they aren't physically damaged (I had one with
a bad DIMM)

--Ricky

Scsi adapters and software raid...

[Bob Hillegas]

It's been interesting reading these comments about adapters to avoid. 

My question is... what SCSI adapter works WELL with software raid
(mdadm) and doesn't get in the way?

Thanks, BobH

On Thu, 2004-02-19 at 14:18, Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Michael wrote:
> >Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
> >a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims.
> 
> 3ware has custom designed matrix switch chips to handle each IDE drive.
> This *alone* is worth the cost of the card.  The RAID parity calculations
> are also done in hardware (not a bunch of CPU xor's.)  You'd be surprised how
> much data a small "slow" processor can move when properly programmed.
> 
> >These turkeys have micro-code bugs that cause a
> >variety of problem for which there is no workaround or solution other
> >than trashing the cards.
> 
> Exactly what bugs?  I've used a number of hardware SCSI RAID cards (none
> by Adaptec however -- some that are now owned by Adapatec) and all of them
> work properly -- as long as they aren't physically damaged (I had one with
> a bad DIMM)
> 
> --Ricky
> 
> 
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-- 
Bob Hillegas <bobh@south.rosestar.lan>

Re: Scsi adapters and software raid...

[Kanoa Withington]

Bob,

All the Adaptec non-RAID SCSI controllers work nicely. The ones based
on the 79xx and newer chips require the newer kernel module. The 78xx
and older ones are all supported by the old module. They are generally
stable, compatible and offer good performance.

Their SCSI _hardware_ RAID controllers are a different story. Steer
clear of those.


-Kanoa


On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Bob Hillegas wrote:

> It's been interesting reading these comments about adapters to avoid.
>
> My question is... what SCSI adapter works WELL with software raid
> (mdadm) and doesn't get in the way?

Re: Scsi adapters and software raid...

[Jeff Garzik]

Bob Hillegas wrote:
> It's been interesting reading these comments about adapters to avoid. 
> 
> My question is... what SCSI adapter works WELL with software raid
> (mdadm) and doesn't get in the way?


For parallel SCSI?

IMO Adaptec is really the only big vendor in the game anymore.  I think 
QLogic dumped their parallel SCSI hardware (correct me if I'm wrong), 
even though they still support their parallel SCSI driver.

Personally, though, I would skip SCSI and go straight to Serial ATA :)

	Jeff

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Scott Long]

Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Michael wrote:
>  >Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
>  >a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims.
> 
> 3ware has custom designed matrix switch chips to handle each IDE drive.
> This *alone* is worth the cost of the card.  The RAID parity calculations
> are also done in hardware (not a bunch of CPU xor's.)  You'd be 
> surprised how
> much data a small "slow" processor can move when properly programmed.
> 

Are you talking about host-processor XOR or adapter card XOR?  The i960
processor used in practically every RAID card known to man right now has
an XOR engine in the memory controller.  It's not quite as efficient as
some higher-end implementations, but it's a heck of a lot better than
having that i960 core spin through an XOR software loop.

Scott

RE: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Guy]

I have 14 18Gig disks in a RAID5.  When it re-builds I get just over
6Meg/sec.  That's 6M per disk, or 84Meg total I/O per second.  The CPU load
is less than 5%.  My system is a P3-500.  If I had a real computer I would
not be able to measure the CPU usage, it would be too low! :)
I have a 2.4 Kernel.

My SCSI buses are the limiting factor.
40MB bus with 6 disks, 80MB with 7, 80MB with 1.
I have only used a few hardware RAID cards, they are not this fast!

-----Original Message-----
From: linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org
[mailto:linux-raid-owner@vger.kernel.org] On Behalf Of Scott Long
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2004 5:34 PM
To: Ricky Beam
Cc: Michael; linux-raid@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

Ricky Beam wrote:
> On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Michael wrote:
>  >Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
>  >a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims.
> 
> 3ware has custom designed matrix switch chips to handle each IDE drive.
> This *alone* is worth the cost of the card.  The RAID parity calculations
> are also done in hardware (not a bunch of CPU xor's.)  You'd be 
> surprised how
> much data a small "slow" processor can move when properly programmed.
> 

Are you talking about host-processor XOR or adapter card XOR?  The i960
processor used in practically every RAID card known to man right now has
an XOR engine in the memory controller.  It's not quite as efficient as
some higher-end implementations, but it's a heck of a lot better than
having that i960 core spin through an XOR software loop.

Scott

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Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Scott Long]

Michael wrote:
> 
> Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
> a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims. Usually these
> microprocessors are stretched to the limit to handle the throughput
> of modern udam drives. I don't know but I suspect that the small
> overhead use in the mmu for software raid has far more and faster
> throughput than any of these dedicated microprocessors..... and, you
> can see the code and know it is bug free or will be if you report the
> bug.  I am the unhappy owner of several Adaptec raid cards that have
> onboard processors to handle not only raid, but command processing
> for the scsi bus.

What exactly are you talking about here?  Are you using a multi-channel
RAID card to do RAID on one channel and SCSI-passthru on the other?
Please explain.

> These turkeys have micro-code bugs that cause a
> variety of problem for which there is no workaround or solution other
> than trashing the cards.

What 'micro-code' bugs are you talking about?  What problems are you
talking about.  If you could provide some details to back up these 
claims, there might be some recourse.

> Don't get me wrong, I thing the 3ware
> product is exceptionally good, I just wouldn't use the raid code
> given the choice of linux software raid.
> 
> Currently running 10 linux software raid boxes -- mix of raid 1 and
> raid 5. Yes, I'm biased :-)
> 
> Michael
> Michael@Insulin-Pumpers.org

Scott

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Jeff Garzik]

Michael wrote:
> Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really 
> a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims. Usually these 
> microprocessors are stretched to the limit to handle the throughput 
> of modern udam drives. I don't know but I suspect that the small 
> overhead use in the mmu for software raid has far more and faster 
> throughput than any of these dedicated microprocessors..... and, you 
> can see the code and know it is bug free or will be if you report the 

Nod...  many hardware RAIDs are turning out this way.  A certain vendor 
whose name does -not- start with 'A' manages to make their hardware RAID 
perform so poorly, it is _half_ the speed of a software RAID using the 
same drives, on a single non-RAID Adaptec SCSI controller.

Most hardware RAID isn't 100% ASIC, but rather a general ASIC and 
firmware with the RAID code in it.

OTOH, hardware RAID really wins for situations like RAID-1, where you 
can -halve- the amount of data going across the PCI bus versus software 
RAID.

	Jeff

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Scott Long]

Jeff Garzik wrote:
> Michael wrote:
>  > Bear in mind that what you are calling "true hardware raid" is really
>  > a microprocessor programmed to do the raid algorithims. Usually these
>  > microprocessors are stretched to the limit to handle the throughput
>  > of modern udam drives. I don't know but I suspect that the small
>  > overhead use in the mmu for software raid has far more and faster
>  > throughput than any of these dedicated microprocessors..... and, you
>  > can see the code and know it is bug free or will be if you report the
> 
> Nod...  many hardware RAIDs are turning out this way.  A certain vendor
> whose name does -not- start with 'A' manages to make their hardware RAID
> perform so poorly, it is _half_ the speed of a software RAID using the
> same drives, on a single non-RAID Adaptec SCSI controller.
> 

Whoever could that be????

> Most hardware RAID isn't 100% ASIC, but rather a general ASIC and
> firmware with the RAID code in it.
> 

Well, the 8030x (i960) chips are really tailored for RAID.  That's why
they have a PCI-PCI bridge, XOR accelerator, and DRAM controller built
into the package.

> OTOH, hardware RAID really wins for situations like RAID-1, where you
> can -halve- the amount of data going across the PCI bus versus software
> RAID.

If performance is how you measure the quality of RAID, then you can't
forget the benefit of a large write cache on the controller and the
intelligence in the raid stack to use it well.  However, the real
benefit to hardware-accelerated RAID is the ability to guarantee that
your reads and writes always succeed, regardless of the failure thrown
at it.  Of course, the number of cards out there that actually meet
this goal is quite small, even from companies whose names start with
'A'.

Scott

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Jeff Garzik]

Rev. Jeffrey Paul wrote:
> I have always avoided the promise fasttrak cards for exactly that 
> reason ("hardware" being in quotes).  It's my understanding that 
> they're not much more than their udma cards with drivers that do most 
> of the RAIDing.

Actually, Promise is one of the very few companies that are doing 
something innovative in RAID...  Their hardware is not 100% software 
RAID nor 100% hardware RAID.  They instead follow the model of network 
cards -- perform all key operations on the board, and let the host CPU 
handle the rest.


> It was also my understanding that the 3ware cards are true hardware 
> raid and are up to the task of something like this, which would also 
> explain why they're 4x the cost.

Correct.


> I am looking at a four disk raid5 or raid10, and it seems like 
> the interrupt load from four drives on four channels might be a bit 
> excesive.  I'm going to be running critical services on the machine 
> that the drives are in (namely mysql and nfs) and don't want to worry 
> about performance.

Once your spindles can max out your PCI bus bandwidth, -then- you can 
start worrying about PCI bandwidth and interrupt load ;-)

	Jeff

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Joshua Baker-LePain]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 at 7:38pm, Jeff Garzik wrote

> Rev. Jeffrey Paul wrote:

> > I am looking at a four disk raid5 or raid10, and it seems like 
> > the interrupt load from four drives on four channels might be a bit 
> > excesive.  I'm going to be running critical services on the machine 
> > that the drives are in (namely mysql and nfs) and don't want to worry 
> > about performance.
> 
> Once your spindles can max out your PCI bus bandwidth, -then- you can 
> start worrying about PCI bandwidth and interrupt load ;-)

With some boards, it's actually pretty easy to do that.  ;)  Not with 4 
disks, as the OP is doing, but 8 disks on one 64bit/33MHz bus (3ware 
7500-8) can start to bump up against the PCI bandwidth.  I've got a couple 
servers with 2 3wares and 16 disks, and I need to put the 3wares on 
separate PCI busses to make sure I get the full speed out of the combined 
array (hardware RAID5, software RAID0).

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Måns Rullgård]

Holger Kiehl <Holger.Kiehl@dwd.de> writes:

> In my opinion no. Most of the cheaper hardware raids are really just
> software raid solutions. For the more expansive once always remember
> you will always need drivers and there is no guarentee that you
> will get them in two or three years. Some vendors do no longer exist
> or no longer support that product.

Wasn't there some talk recently about standardizing the on-disk
format for both hardware and software RAID?

-- 
Måns Rullgård
mru@kth.se

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Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Holger Kiehl]

On Thu, 19 Feb 2004, Måns Rullgård wrote:

> Holger Kiehl <Holger.Kiehl@dwd.de> writes:
> 
> > In my opinion no. Most of the cheaper hardware raids are really just
> > software raid solutions. For the more expansive once always remember
> > you will always need drivers and there is no guarentee that you
> > will get them in two or three years. Some vendors do no longer exist
> > or no longer support that product.
> 
> Wasn't there some talk recently about standardizing the on-disk
> format for both hardware and software RAID?
> 
Correct, I read this with great interest and hope that all vendors
do agree on a standart.

Holger


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Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Jeff Garzik]

Måns Rullgård wrote:
> Holger Kiehl <Holger.Kiehl@dwd.de> writes:
> 
> 
>>In my opinion no. Most of the cheaper hardware raids are really just
>>software raid solutions. For the more expansive once always remember
>>you will always need drivers and there is no guarentee that you
>>will get them in two or three years. Some vendors do no longer exist
>>or no longer support that product.
> 
> 
> Wasn't there some talk recently about standardizing the on-disk
> format for both hardware and software RAID?


It's happening.

"SNIA" has created an on-disk format "DDF", which both software and 
hardware RAID vendors have pretty much all agreed to use.

Of course, the spec is not public yet, so who knows what they have 
agreed to...

	Jeff



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Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Jeff Gray]

Greetings Holger,

>From: Holger Kiehl <Holger.Kiehl@dwd.de>
>Subject: Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff
>Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:49:09 +0000 (GMT)

>I have a system running for nearly three years distributing some 2.3 
>million
>files with 200GB daily. This is with linux software raid and have 
>encountered
>absolutly no problems. During the same period another system (not linux) 
>with
>a similar workload but with hardware raid has failed twice, once makeing
>all data useless.

I am curious as to which filesystem you are using on that server. I've asked 
questions on other
mailing lists before regarding journaling filesystems but it's always 
interesting to see how people
are using them in real-life scenarios. Currently I'm trying to choose 
between Reiser and XFS.

Kind Regards,
Jeff Gray: the "other" Jeff ;)

_________________________________________________________________
Dream of owning a home? Find out how in the First-time Home Buying Guide. 
http://special.msn.com/home/firsthome.armx

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Holger Kiehl]

Hello Jeff

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004, Jeff Gray wrote:

> Greetings Holger,
> 
> >From: Holger Kiehl <Holger.Kiehl@dwd.de>
> >Subject: Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff
> >Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:49:09 +0000 (GMT)
> 
> >I have a system running for nearly three years distributing some 2.3 
> >million
> >files with 200GB daily. This is with linux software raid and have 
> >encountered
> >absolutly no problems. During the same period another system (not linux) 
> >with
> >a similar workload but with hardware raid has failed twice, once makeing
> >all data useless.
> 
> I am curious as to which filesystem you are using on that server. I've asked 
> questions on other
> mailing lists before regarding journaling filesystems but it's always 
> interesting to see how people
> are using them in real-life scenarios. Currently I'm trying to choose 
> between Reiser and XFS.
> 
I am using ext2.

Holger

Re: 3ware escalade vs software raid, from a different jeff

[Joshua Baker-LePain]

On Mon, 23 Feb 2004 at 5:23pm, Jeff Gray wrote

> I am curious as to which filesystem you are using on that server. I've asked 
> questions on other
> mailing lists before regarding journaling filesystems but it's always 
> interesting to see how people
> are using them in real-life scenarios. Currently I'm trying to choose 
> between Reiser and XFS.

It very much depends on your workload and typical file size.  I use XFS on 
my big 3ware based servers (2 2TB servers, and 1 1TB), and generally am 
*very* pleased with it.  It's very popular on the linux-ide-arrays list as 
well.

XFS usually is very fast.  Where it falls down (at least, I think it's the 
culprit) is when you have *lots* of very small files.  One directory on 
one of my servers is ~450 GB big and has ~3.4M files in ~29K 
subdirectories (avg file size 140Kb).  Operations on that directory are 
noticeably slow.  For that sort of workload, I'd think Reiser would 
be better.

And lots of folks just stick with ext3.  The best answer, of course, is to 
test with something that as closely as possible resembles your expected 
workload.

-- 
Joshua Baker-LePain
Department of Biomedical Engineering
Duke University