Why ~2MB/sec Max Read/Write on a LSI-3801E (B) HBA

[Ian Ohr]

We have two Sun J4400 JBODs with 1TB SATA drives in.
Each drive has a SAS-SATA convertor

These J4400 are connected via SAS cable to an LSI-3801E (B) HBA in a Sun Fire X4150 server running the latest FreeNAS stable (9.3.1)

Read and write performance per disk seems to be limited to about 2MB / sec . Can someone advise me on the suitability of this HBA, and if I should be changing the firmware on it. Currently it is using the mpt driver. I understand that different firmware "type" can cause a change in the driver used, and firmware version needs to match driver version? Is this correct and how can I check?

 

[dlavigne]

Did you end up using this HBA?

 

[Ian Ohr]

We did. I've even gone as far as reinstalling the entire server with the latest Solaris 11.3 figuring it may be a driver issue. Still having the same slow write performance though, almost exactly the same:

This is some iostat while writing a 4GB DVD iso to this pool via an NFS share.

Code:

                capacity     operations    bandwidth
pool          alloc   free   read  write   read  write
------------  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----  -----
data          26.7G  19.0T      0    218      0  18.0M
  mirror-0    1.27G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t103d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t127d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-1    1.29G   927G      0     27      0   855K
    c4t104d0      -      -      0     16      0   855K
    c4t128d0      -      -      0     16      0   855K
  mirror-2    1.26G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t105d0      -      -      0      5      0   823K
    c4t129d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-3    1.27G   927G      0      7      0   797K
    c4t106d0      -      -      0      6      0   797K
    c4t130d0      -      -      0      6      0   797K
  mirror-4    1.27G   927G      0      8      0  1002K
    c4t107d0      -      -      0      6      0  1002K
    c4t131d0      -      -      0      6      0  1002K
  mirror-5    1.28G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t108d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t132d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-6    1.27G   927G      0      8      0  1.00M
    c4t109d0      -      -      0      7      0  1.00M
    c4t133d0      -      -      0      7      0  1.00M
  mirror-7    1.27G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t110d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t134d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-8    1.26G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t111d0      -      -      0      5      0   823K
    c4t135d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-9    1.28G   927G      0      9      0  1.05M
    c4t112d0      -      -      0      7      0  1.05M
    c4t136d0      -      -      0      7      0  1.05M
  mirror-10   1.27G   927G      0      7      0   797K
    c4t113d0      -      -      0      6      0   797K
    c4t137d0      -      -      0      6      0   797K
  mirror-11   1.27G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t114d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t138d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-12   1.26G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t115d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t139d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-13   1.28G   927G      0     22      0   844K
    c4t116d0      -      -      0     15      0   845K
    c4t140d0      -      -      0     14      0   845K
  mirror-14   1.27G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t117d0      -      -      0      7      0   824K
    c4t141d0      -      -      0      7      0   824K
  mirror-15   1.27G   927G      0     27      0   833K
    c4t118d0      -      -      0     16      0   834K
    c4t142d0      -      -      0     17      0   834K
  mirror-16   1.25G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t119d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
    c4t143d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-17   1.27G   927G      0      8      0   976K
    c4t120d0      -      -      0      7      0   976K
    c4t144d0      -      -      0      7      0   976K
  mirror-18   1.29G   927G      0      7      0   823K
    c4t121d0      -      -      0      5      0   823K
    c4t145d0      -      -      0      6      0   823K
  mirror-19   1.28G   927G      0      8      0   976K
    c4t122d0      -      -      0      6      0   976K
    c4t146d0      -      -      0      6      0   976K
  mirror-20   1.27G   927G      0      8      0  1.00M
    c4t123d0      -      -      0      6      0  1.00M
    c4t147d0      -      -      0      7      0  1.00M
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