RE: RAID1 & 2.6.9 performance problem
From: J. Ryan Earl <hidden>
Date: 2005-01-18 17:32:54
"Please check this out: hdparm -t /dev/hdg /dev/hde /dev/md6 /dev/hdg: Timing buffered disk reads: 184 MB in 3.03 seconds = 60.76 MB/sec /dev/hde: Timing buffered disk reads: 184 MB in 3.01 seconds = 61.08 MB/sec /dev/md6: Timing buffered disk reads: 184 MB in 3.03 seconds = 60.74 MB/sec I've expected much better /dev/md6 performance (at least 100MB/s)." This is perfectly normally, I'm not sure why you'd expect better performance. You will get 2 parallel sequential reads at around 120MB/sec assuming you're not bus limited. A single sequential parallel read can be no faster than the performance of a single RAID1 disk, though latency should lower significantly. I found that average number of read seeks/sec increases around 80% in going from a single HD to a RAID1 setup. Think about it and it should make sense. You have two discs with identical layouts. How could you possibly increase the speed of a single sequential read? You can't just read half from one drive, half from the other, you'd always have heads seeking and it would no longer be a sequential read. -ryan