update:
while this benchmark is still valid, very simple, very cross platform, with a focus on the team cpu (why is there no multi core md5? (putting many many core arm servers at disadvantage) + harddisk (two very important components)
maybe stress-ng is the way to go? https://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/stress-test-linux-unix-server-with-stress-ng/
harddisk performance of real and virtual machines, is of course, important for overall performance of the system.
of course – a system is only as fast – as the slowest part “on the team”.
so a super fast SSD bundled with a super slow single core celeron, won’t increase performance significantly.
about the system:
hostnamectl Static hostname: giada Icon name: computer-desktop Chassis: desktop Operating System: Debian GNU/Linux 10 (buster) Kernel: Linux 4.19.0-11-amd64 Architecture: x86-64 su - root lshw -class tape -class disk -class storage
========== what harddisk / controllers are used ==========
*-sata
description: SATA controller
product: 8 Series SATA Controller 1 [AHCI mode]
vendor: Intel Corporation
physical id: 1f.2
bus info: pci@0000:00:1f.2
logical name: scsi0
version: 04
width: 32 bits
clock: 66MHz
capabilities: sata msi pm ahci_1.0 bus_master cap_list emulated
configuration: driver=ahci latency=0
resources: irq:45 ioport:f0b0(size=8) ioport:f0a0(size=4) ioport:f090(size=8) ioport:f080(size=4) ioport:f060(size=32) memory:f7e1a000-f7e1a7ff
benchmark script used:
#!/bin/bash
echo "=== starting harddisk sequential write and read bench v1 ==="
echo "no need to run it as root"
echo "because dd is a very dangerous utility"
echo "modify paths /media/user/to/mountpoint/ manually"
echo "then run the script"
echo ""
echo "========== writing 3GB of zeroes =========="
time dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/user/mountpoint/testfile bs=3G count=1 oflag=direct
echo "========== reading 6GB of zeroes =========="
time dd if=/media/user/mountpoint/testfile bs=3GB count=1 of=/dev/null
echo "========== tidy up remove testfile =========="
rm -rf /media/user/mountpoint/testfile;
results:
harddisk1: toshiba 2.5 usb 3.0 connected, filesystem: ext4
about the harddisk:
hdparm -I /dev/sdb
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: TOSHIBA MQ01ABD050
Firmware Revision: AX001U
Transport: Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6
Standards:
Supported: 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 8
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 976773168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 4096 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 476940 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 500107 MBytes (500 GB)
cache/buffer size = 8192 KBytes
Form Factor: 2.5 inch
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16 Current = 16
Advanced power management level: 128
DMA: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Advanced Power Management feature set
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
* IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Host-initiated interface power management
* Phy event counters
* Idle-Unload when NCQ is active
DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
Device-initiated interface power management
* Software settings preservation
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Write Same (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
not frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
110min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 110min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
benchmark result:
========== writing 3GB of zeroes to /media/user/mountpoint/testfile ========== 0+1 records in 0+1 records out 2147479552 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 25.6249 s, 83.8 MB/s real 0m27.466s user 0m0.008s sys 0m3.089s ========== reading 6GB of zeroes from /media/user/mountpoint/testfile ========== 0+1 records in 0+1 records out 2147479552 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 22.8702 s, 93.9 MB/s real 0m22.880s user 0m0.000s sys 0m1.923s
harddisk2: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB, filesystem: ext4
about the harddisk:
hdparm -I /dev/sda
ATA device, with non-removable media
Model Number: Samsung SSD 860 EVO 500GB
Firmware Revision: RVT03B6Q
Transport: Serial, ATA8-AST, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5, SATA Rev 2.6, SATA Rev 3.0
Standards:
Used: unknown (minor revision code 0x005e)
Supported: 11 8 7 6 5
Likely used: 11
Configuration:
Logical max current
cylinders 16383 16383
heads 16 16
sectors/track 63 63
--
CHS current addressable sectors: 16514064
LBA user addressable sectors: 268435455
LBA48 user addressable sectors: 976773168
Logical Sector size: 512 bytes
Physical Sector size: 512 bytes
Logical Sector-0 offset: 0 bytes
device size with M = 1024*1024: 476940 MBytes
device size with M = 1000*1000: 500107 MBytes (500 GB)
cache/buffer size = unknown
Form Factor: 2.5 inch
Nominal Media Rotation Rate: Solid State Device
Capabilities:
LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
Queue depth: 32
Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 1 Current = 1
DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6
Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
Cycle time: no flow control=120ns IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
Enabled Supported:
* SMART feature set
Security Mode feature set
* Power Management feature set
* Write cache
* Look-ahead
* Host Protected Area feature set
* WRITE_BUFFER command
* READ_BUFFER command
* NOP cmd
* DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
SET_MAX security extension
* 48-bit Address feature set
* Device Configuration Overlay feature set
* Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE
* FLUSH_CACHE_EXT
* SMART error logging
* SMART self-test
* General Purpose Logging feature set
* WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
* 64-bit World wide name
Write-Read-Verify feature set
* WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command
* {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands
* Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE
* Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
* Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)
* Gen3 signaling speed (6.0Gb/s)
* Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
* Phy event counters
* READ_LOG_DMA_EXT equivalent to READ_LOG_EXT
* DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
* Device-initiated interface power management
* Asynchronous notification (eg. media change)
* Software settings preservation
Device Sleep (DEVSLP)
* SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set
* SCT Write Same (AC2)
* SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)
* SCT Features Control (AC4)
* SCT Data Tables (AC5)
* reserved 69[4]
* DOWNLOAD MICROCODE DMA command
* SET MAX SETPASSWORD/UNLOCK DMA commands
* WRITE BUFFER DMA command
* READ BUFFER DMA command
* Data Set Management TRIM supported (limit 8 blocks)
* Deterministic read ZEROs after TRIM
Security:
Master password revision code = 65534
supported
not enabled
not locked
frozen
not expired: security count
supported: enhanced erase
4min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 8min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.
NAA : 5
Device Sleep:
DEVSLP Exit Timeout (DETO): 50 ms (drive)
Minimum DEVSLP Assertion Time (MDAT): 30 ms (drive)
benchmark result:
=== starting harddisk sequential write and read bench v1 === no need to run it as root because dd is a very dangerous utility modify paths /media/user/to/mountpoint/ manually then run the script ========== writing 3GB of zeroes ========== 0+1 records in 0+1 records out 2147479552 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 5.46448 s, 393 MB/s real 0m5.474s user 0m0.001s sys 0m2.407s ========== reading 6GB of zeroes ========== 0+1 records in 0+1 records out 2147479552 bytes (2.1 GB, 2.0 GiB) copied, 4.87677 s, 440 MB/s real 0m4.886s user 0m0.000s sys 0m1.260s ========== tidy up remove testfile ==========
comment:
the USB 3.0 connected Toshiba ext harddisk (2.5) performs pretty well reaching 93.9 MB/s
of course it can not compete with an SATA internal connected Samsung SSD 860 reaching around 393 MB/s during write and 440 MB/s during read.
how fast are virtual harddisks?
boot up time for the virtual Win 10 64 guest was 40 sec (from power on to desktop), not pretty but okay. (too long imho)
so one knows, that the theoretical speed of a virtual harddisk, should not be greater than that of the real harddisk.
but: there is a lot of RAM caching going on, so the virtual harddisk speeds even exceed the real harddisk speeds.
CrystalDisk Harddisk Benchmark – Win 10 64 Bit as VirtualBox guest on Debian 10 64Bit host (samsung ssd) – i-o host caching active (!)
during read, almost all read access was RAM cached (not much activity on the harddisk LED)
during write, significant harddisk activity was seen.
also notable: Win 10 VirtualBox guest produces (imho too much) CPU usage, when idle
Win 10 VirtualBox guest produces (imho too much) CPU usage, when idle
the cause of this is unkown (is it MINING BITCOINS in the background that then get transferred to Micro$oft? :-p)
this could cause an issue when having many Win 10 vms running in parallel, because it could result in an overall slowdown of the host system
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