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Iometer® is a software-based I/O exerciser capable to test and
characterize stand-alone as well as clustered storage systems.
Developed originally by Intel as a proprietary tool, it eventually became
part of the Open Source Development Lab (OSDL) from which point it
has undergone several revisions and updates.
Going back to the Fibre channel host controller cards, one of the
features that the ATTO FC-44ES supports is the creation of multiple,
small virtual drives that can be striped by the OS for faster access. What
that translates to is the ability of two cards to communicate amongst
themselves at the fastest possible rate, unaffected by delays otherwise
encountered by moving parts in an actual disk drive.
By using this method
combined with the
Iometer® application,
one can benchmark
the communication
channel and verify that
the PCIe express link is
utilized to its fullest
potential.
In the example below, a single ATTO FC-44ES card was installed into
one of the 4 PCIe expansion slots provided by the EB2 chassis. It was
then connected via fiber optic cables to a second FC-44ES card (set to
simulate a fibre disk array, by using a striped set of small virtual drives ).
Three tests were performed using Iometer. In the first, an equal amount
of read and write threads were exercised between the two cards. The
following two tests focused on either all-read or all-write threads. The
test results are shown in the table below:
I/O Test type Throughput [MByte/sec]
1003.3
50% Reads; 50% Writes
696.1
100% Reads
100% Writes 677.7
The results show an aggregate throughput exceeding 1GByte in the
case where reads and writes are evenly split 50-50 and a slower, more
realistic rate when only a single type of threads was exercised.