Set up sysbench

  • Earlier I used it to benchmark the cpu here.

  • So, I used sysbench to benchmark the file system.

  • sysbench can be installed using apt-get

      sudo apt-get update
  sudo apt-get install sysbench

Benchmarking cases

  1. HDD - FAT32 mounted at /mnt/storage/
  2. HDD - NTFS mounted at /mnt/transfers/
  3. SD CARD - EXT4 mounted at /

Benchmarking Preparation

  1. Create directory benchmark in all three locations

     mkdir /mnt/storage/benchmark
 mkdir /mnt/transfers/benchmark
 mkdir ~/benchmark

  2. Create required test files

     $ cd /mnt/storage/benchmark
 $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=5G prepare
 sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

 128 files, 40960Kb each, 5120Mb total
 Creating files for the test...

  3. Copy the files to other 2 locations

     cp * /mnt/transfers/benchmark/
 cp * ~/benchmark/

Benchmark

  • Change to required directory.
  • Run the benchmark.
  • Do this for all 3 cases.

Output for all cases shown below.

  1. HDD - FAT32

     $ cd /mnt/storage/benchmark
 $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=5G \
 --file-test-mode=rndrw --init-rng=on \
 --max-time=300 --max-requests=0 run

 sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

 Running the test with following options:
 Number of threads: 1
 Initializing random number generator from timer.


 Extra file open flags: 0
 128 files, 40Mb each
 5Gb total file size
 Block size 16Kb
 Number of random requests for random IO: 0
 Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
 Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
 Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
 Using synchronous I/O mode
 Doing random r/w test
 Threads started!
 Time limit exceeded, exiting...
 Done.

 Operations performed:  27810 Read, 18540 Write, 59264 Other = 105614 Total
 Read 434.53Mb  Written 289.69Mb  Total transferred 724.22Mb  (2.414Mb/sec)
   154.49 Requests/sec executed

 Test execution summary:
     total time:                          300.0140s
     total number of events:              46350
     total time taken by event execution: 226.9894
     per-request statistics:
          min:                                  0.08ms
          avg:                                  4.90ms
          max:                                 28.78ms
          approx.  95 percentile:              11.81ms

 Threads fairness:
     events (avg/stddev):           46350.0000/0.00
     execution time (avg/stddev):   226.9894/0.00

  2. HDD - NTFS

     $ cd /mnt/transfers/benchmark
 $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=5G \
          --file-test-mode=rndrw --init-rng=on \
          --max-time=300 --max-requests=0 run
 sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

 Running the test with following options:
 Number of threads: 1
 Initializing random number generator from timer.


 Extra file open flags: 0
 128 files, 40Mb each
 5Gb total file size
 Block size 16Kb
 Number of random requests for random IO: 0
 Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
 Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
 Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
 Using synchronous I/O mode
 Doing random r/w test
 Threads started!
 Time limit exceeded, exiting...
 Done.

 Operations performed:  20629 Read, 13752 Write, 43904 Other = 78285 Total
 Read 322.33Mb  Written 214.88Mb  Total transferred 537.2Mb  (1.7906Mb/sec)
   114.60 Requests/sec executed

 Test execution summary:
     total time:                          300.0108s
     total number of events:              34381
     total time taken by event execution: 241.7225
     per-request statistics:
          min:                                  0.09ms
          avg:                                  7.03ms
          max:                                 70.43ms
          approx.  95 percentile:              12.80ms

 Threads fairness:
     events (avg/stddev):           34381.0000/0.00
     execution time (avg/stddev):   241.7225/0.00

  3. SD CARD - EXT4

     $ cd ~/benchmark
 $ sysbench --test=fileio --file-total-size=5G \
 --file-test-mode=rndrw --init-rng=on \
 --max-time=300 --max-requests=0 run
 sysbench 0.4.12:  multi-threaded system evaluation benchmark

 Running the test with following options:
 Number of threads: 1
 Initializing random number generator from timer.


 Extra file open flags: 0
 128 files, 40Mb each
 5Gb total file size
 Block size 16Kb
 Number of random requests for random IO: 0
 Read/Write ratio for combined random IO test: 1.50
 Periodic FSYNC enabled, calling fsync() each 100 requests.
 Calling fsync() at the end of test, Enabled.
 Using synchronous I/O mode
 Doing random r/w test
 Threads started!
 Time limit exceeded, exiting...
 Done.

 Operations performed:  1020 Read, 680 Write, 2122 Other = 3822 Total
 Read 15.938Mb  Written 10.625Mb  Total transferred 26.562Mb  (90.526Kb/sec)
 5.66 Requests/sec executed

 Test execution summary:
 total time:                          300.4667s
 total number of events:              1700
 total time taken by event execution: 8.3414
 per-request statistics:
      min:                                  0.10ms
      avg:                                  4.91ms
      max:                                821.14ms
      approx.  95 percentile:               2.32ms

 Threads fairness:
 events (avg/stddev):           1700.0000/0.00
 execution time (avg/stddev):   8.3414/0.00

Observation and notes

  • HDD - FAT32(2.414Mb/sec) > HDD - NTFS(1.7906Mb/sec) »»> SD CARD - EXT4(90.526Kb/sec).
  • So, in speed comparison,
    • HDD - FAT32 = 1.35 x HDD - NTFS
    • HDD - FAT32 = 26.67 x SD CARD - EXT4
    • HDD - NTFS = 19.77 x SD CARD - EXT4
  • In short, HDD is like 20x faster than SD card.
  • As in any benchmark, take this with a pinch of salt.
  • I repeated each case couple of times and didn’t see much deviation in the overall speed.

Clean up

  • Remove the benchmark folders.
  • Or may be if you want empty benchmark folders, then run sysbench --test=fileio cleanup in each folder.

Hardware and OS

  • I was using Raspberry Pi 1 Model B for this setup.
  • It is running Raspbian GNU/Linux 8 (jessie)
  • Internal HDD - Seagate Barracuda 7200.12, 1TB - connected via USB enclosure.
  • SD Card - Transcend 16 GB SDHC Class 10