Benchmarking Linux, and swap performance

[sluthy]

I've jsut set up a server for home to act as a file/movie/calendar/print server.

Pentium-D E2140 non-OC
1x1GB generic DDR800
Gigabyte GA-G33-DS2R
onboard video
2GB CompactFlash as OS HDD
4x320GB WD SATA in RAID5 as storage

Currently has SUSE 10.3 on it (just fits), but for such new hardware it runs like a dog. I know Linux is often slower than other OS's but it is so sluggish. I put it on a CF card (CF-to-IDE adapter) to improve noise, power consumption and speed, but installing it off DVD took nearly 2 hours! I'm considering wiping it AGAIN (tried Ubuntu and SUSE twice before I got the partitioning right) and doing my own non-GUI light installation (that'll be another "how do I..." thread ).

Is there anything like PCMark or equivalent for Linux, so I can test my performance and compare it?

The only thing I can think of is the fact that I'm not running a swap partition at all. 100MB /boot partition, the rest is /filesystem, no room for swap. But with 1GB of RAM and barely much running, that shouldn't be a problem?

 

[Netopia]

I don't know where your CF is located within your setup, but you could do:

hdparm -tT /dev/hda (or hdc or where ever you have it).

For comparison:
1st Gen Raptor on a Fedora 4 box with AthlonXP 3200, 2GB of DDR 3200 Memory:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 2340 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1170.37 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 206 MB in 3.02 seconds = 68.26 MB/sec

Same server, but 200GB WD2000JB PATA drive:

/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 2320 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1159.93 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 176 MB in 3.02 seconds = 58.32 MB/sec

These are from a machine running PCLinuxOS2007, Athlon64 4000+, 1GB DDR3200 memory:
Seagate 120GB PATA (10.7) drive:

/dev/hdc:
Timing cached reads: 1858 MB in 2.01 seconds = 923.06 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 176 MB in 3.03 seconds = 58.08 MB/sec

And from a 500GB Samsung SATA drive:

/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 1792 MB in 2.00 seconds = 895.51 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 240 MB in 3.00 seconds = 79.94 MB/sec


I think you're going to find that your CF is going to compare poorly even to the older PATA drives. BTW... I have a box that runs dual celeron 466's @ 525MHz, with 768MB of memory, a PCI VooDoo 3000 video card and a fairly old 40GB hard drive as the main drive and mirrored 120GB drives for storage of personal files and such and it's plenty fast for the job. I can also browse the web or do basic email and such from it without feeling like it's taking forever, so I think that might be another indication that we are talking about your drive being the problem.

If you really want to keep heat and noise down, but also have better performance, you might consider an ATA, 7200RPM laptop drive with an adapter. Seems like a good compromise, though were it me, I'd probably just get a full sized hard drive (perhaps a quiet Samsung spinpoint) and be done with it.

Joe

 

[sciencewhiz]

For comparison, here is my 5400 RPM laptop drive:
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads: 2348 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1175.59 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 116 MB in 3.04 seconds = 38.10 MB/sec

1 gb PNY SD card:
/dev/mmcblk0p1:
Timing cached reads: 2332 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1166.81 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 8 MB in 3.20 seconds = 2.50 MB/sec

As you can see, the flash based card performed horribly compared to even the laptop hard drive.

 

[Nothinman]

But with 1GB of RAM and barely much running, that shouldn't be a problem?

If you did a normal install of SuSE with X and everything then that wouldn't qualify as "barely much running" and that 1G would probably be filled up quickly.