SuSE 9.2 and 3ware 8506 card

SuSE 9.2 and 3ware 8506 card

[Tom Peters]

Hi, brand new newbie (is that redundant?) here, who soon to be the proud 
owner of a 3ware 8506-4 RAID card, on its way in the mail. I'm running an 
old P3 on SuSE 9.2 and would like to know what to read to get up to speed 
on setting this card up and maintaining it once I do. I'm pretty new to 
linux and get a lot of advice that is pitched just slightly above my level 
of understanding, so please go slow.

I'm currently using a Compaq SmartArray 3200 with 8 drives and I've about 
given up getting any kind of reasonable performance out of it. That, plus 
the outrageous cost of SCSI drives, is the reason for the switch to SATA. I 
can borrow a pair of 300 GB drives for a while to prove the concept (the 
3ware card wasn't that pricey) and if I can get it to work reasonably well, 
buy some drives. I think there's some voodoo in the BIOS of a real Compaq 
server that makes it work properly; for me it's a dog and writes 
unbelievably slow.

I've been reading this group for a few weeks and hear some hints and 
intimations about things I should probably learn about. For example, 
someone just mentioned tw_cli maint verify, is that a 3ware thing or a ext3 
thing? And the fact that there is a 3ware knowledgebase (e.g. 
http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=13247 should help.

So what else do I need to know?

-T






[Philosophy] There is nothing that somebody, somewhere, will not
consider immoral. --Jan.Six@uku.fi
--... ...--  -.. .  -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters@nospam.mixcom.com   (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting)  WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43° 7' 17.2" N by 88° 6' 28.9" W,  Elevation 815',  Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531



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Re: SuSE 9.2 and 3ware 8506 card

[Mike Hardy]

It is possible to run SMART commands through to individual drives on
3ware cards, even if you set the drives up as a hardware RAID array
(making them non-addressable otherwise). I'd read up on 'smartmontools'
(the linux SMART protocol implementation) and get ready to set up smartd
to scan the drives at least once a week. I do a short scan once a day
and a full one once a week.

Also, 3ware has their own daemon that exports all array status via a
website if you do a hardware array. You'll need to monitor that somehow
or have it send you mail to make sure you know when the array goes degraded.

tw_cli sounds like a non-web version of that, that could help

That's all focused on reliability though (job #1, imho). Your main
concern seems to be around performance.

The only thing I've seen that looked interesting there on this list had
to do with setting read-ahead parameters at all the different layers -
filesystem, software raid, and block devices. You can find good advice
and some scripts for trying combinations in the archives.

Don't forget hdparm -Tt on a JBOD config to check things at the start
for basic hardware baseline, and bonnie++ at the filesystem level once
you think things are working. That's where I start and end, anyway

Good luck...

-Mike

Tom Peters wrote:
> 
> Hi, brand new newbie (is that redundant?) here, who soon to be the proud
> owner of a 3ware 8506-4 RAID card, on its way in the mail. I'm running
> an old P3 on SuSE 9.2 and would like to know what to read to get up to
> speed on setting this card up and maintaining it once I do. I'm pretty
> new to linux and get a lot of advice that is pitched just slightly above
> my level of understanding, so please go slow.
> 
> I'm currently using a Compaq SmartArray 3200 with 8 drives and I've
> about given up getting any kind of reasonable performance out of it.
> That, plus the outrageous cost of SCSI drives, is the reason for the
> switch to SATA. I can borrow a pair of 300 GB drives for a while to
> prove the concept (the 3ware card wasn't that pricey) and if I can get
> it to work reasonably well, buy some drives. I think there's some voodoo
> in the BIOS of a real Compaq server that makes it work properly; for me
> it's a dog and writes unbelievably slow.
> 
> I've been reading this group for a few weeks and hear some hints and
> intimations about things I should probably learn about. For example,
> someone just mentioned tw_cli maint verify, is that a 3ware thing or a
> ext3 thing? And the fact that there is a 3ware knowledgebase (e.g.
> http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=13247 should help.
> 
> So what else do I need to know?
> 
> -T
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Philosophy] There is nothing that somebody, somewhere, will not
> consider immoral. --Jan.Six@uku.fi
> --... ...--  -.. .  -. ----. --.- --.- -...
> tpeters@nospam.mixcom.com   (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
> "HEY YOU" (loud shouting)  WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
> 43° 7' 17.2" N by 88° 6' 28.9" W,  Elevation 815',  Grid Square EN53wc
> WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User
> 385531
> 
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html

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Re: SuSE 9.2 and 3ware 8506 card

[Peter Daum]

tw_clin is the (binary only) command line tool for maintaining 3ware
controllers. All you can do with the web frontend can be done this
way, too.

Performance of the 3ware 8506 is pretty reasonable (I got a data rate
of ~ 80 MB/s with RAID 10 , 55-60 with RAID 1 ) and about the same
for reading and writing.

Unfortunately, after my experiences (see above), i have some serious
concerns regarding data integrity, though ...

Regards,
                   Peter Daum


Tom Peters wrote:
> 
> Hi, brand new newbie (is that redundant?) here, who soon to be the proud 
> owner of a 3ware 8506-4 RAID card, on its way in the mail. I'm running 
> an old P3 on SuSE 9.2 and would like to know what to read to get up to 
> speed on setting this card up and maintaining it once I do. I'm pretty 
> new to linux and get a lot of advice that is pitched just slightly above 
> my level of understanding, so please go slow.
> 
> I'm currently using a Compaq SmartArray 3200 with 8 drives and I've 
> about given up getting any kind of reasonable performance out of it. 
> That, plus the outrageous cost of SCSI drives, is the reason for the 
> switch to SATA. I can borrow a pair of 300 GB drives for a while to 
> prove the concept (the 3ware card wasn't that pricey) and if I can get 
> it to work reasonably well, buy some drives. I think there's some voodoo 
> in the BIOS of a real Compaq server that makes it work properly; for me 
> it's a dog and writes unbelievably slow.
> 
> I've been reading this group for a few weeks and hear some hints and 
> intimations about things I should probably learn about. For example, 
> someone just mentioned tw_cli maint verify, is that a 3ware thing or a 
> ext3 thing? And the fact that there is a 3ware knowledgebase (e.g. 
> http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=13247 should help.
> 
> So what else do I need to know?
> 
> -T
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> [Philosophy] There is nothing that somebody, somewhere, will not
> consider immoral. --Jan.Six@uku.fi

Re: SuSE 9.2 and 3ware 8506 card

[Tom Peters]

My thanks to those who responded. I have the 3ware 8506-4LP installed and 
running with a pair of Maxtor Maxline III drives. I'm out looking for the 
SmartMonTools suite, per the advice given.

Bonnie++ gives me results like  22034 k/s seq out, char mode, 32660 block 
mode, 13120 rewrite. Yikes! 91 to 94% cpu utilization for character mode 
output! I suppose that's pretty inefficient though. More like 35-38% for 
block, 27% for rewrites.

Tweaking the background task control one step left or right of center 
towards "Faster Task" or "Faster IO" seems to make a small but measurable 
difference, but oddly, sequential reads using Bonnie++ were slightly faster 
when tweaked towards "Faster Task."

I found out something else too, something which I supposed should have been 
obvious. I started out with ext3 on this array. I wiped it and changed it 
to xfs, which benchmarks faster, at least as far as Bonnie++ can tell. I 
guess ext3 is a journaling fs, is it not?

Is there some particular filesystem that's any better than any other for 
hardware mirrored arrays?

-Tom


At 08:38 AM 1/31/2006 +0100, Peter Daum wrote:
>tw_clin is the (binary only) command line tool for maintaining 3ware
>controllers. All you can do with the web frontend can be done this
>way, too.
>
>Performance of the 3ware 8506 is pretty reasonable (I got a data rate
>of ~ 80 MB/s with RAID 10 , 55-60 with RAID 1 ) and about the same
>for reading and writing.
>
>Unfortunately, after my experiences (see above), i have some serious
>concerns regarding data integrity, though ...
>
>Regards,
>                   Peter Daum
>
>
>Tom Peters wrote:
>>Hi, brand new newbie (is that redundant?) here, who soon to be the proud 
>>owner of a 3ware 8506-4 RAID card, on its way in the mail. I'm running an 
>>old P3 on SuSE 9.2 and would like to know what to read to get up to speed 
>>on setting this card up and maintaining it once I do. I'm pretty new to 
>>linux and get a lot of advice that is pitched just slightly above my 
>>level of understanding, so please go slow.
>>I'm currently using a Compaq SmartArray 3200 with 8 drives and I've about 
>>given up getting any kind of reasonable performance out of it. That, plus 
>>the outrageous cost of SCSI drives, is the reason for the switch to SATA. 
>>I can borrow a pair of 300 GB drives for a while to prove the concept 
>>(the 3ware card wasn't that pricey) and if I can get it to work 
>>reasonably well, buy some drives. I think there's some voodoo in the BIOS 
>>of a real Compaq server that makes it work properly; for me it's a dog 
>>and writes unbelievably slow.
>>I've been reading this group for a few weeks and hear some hints and 
>>intimations about things I should probably learn about. For example, 
>>someone just mentioned tw_cli maint verify, is that a 3ware thing or a 
>>ext3 thing? And the fact that there is a 3ware knowledgebase (e.g. 
>>http://www.3ware.com/KB/article.aspx?id=13247 should help.
>>So what else do I need to know?
>>-T
>>
>>
>>
>>[Philosophy] There is nothing that somebody, somewhere, will not
>>consider immoral. --Jan.Six@uku.fi
>
>-
>To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-raid" in
>the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
>More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html


[Pop Culture] Pour me a glass of grain alcohol and rain water, and
help yourself to whatever you'd like.  --Gen. Jack Ripper, Dr.
Strangelove
--... ...--  -.. .  -. ----. --.- --.- -...
tpeters@nospam.mixcom.com   (remove "nospam") N9QQB (amateur radio)
"HEY YOU" (loud shouting)  WEB ADDRESS http//www.mixweb.com/tpeters
43° 7' 17.2" N by 88° 6' 28.9" W,  Elevation 815',  Grid Square EN53wc
WAN/LAN/Telcom Analyst, Tech Writer, MCP, CCNA, Registered Linux User 385531



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