In this article, ill share my favorite tweaks for the linux desktop. Configure raid on loop devices and lvm over top of raid. If properly configured, theyll be another 30% faster. Options are good for tweaking rebuilt process and may increase overall system load, high cpu and memory usage. This tutorial explains how to view, list, create, add, remove, delete, resize, format, mount and configure raid levels 0, 1 and 5 in linux step by step with practical examples. This article explains how to createmanage a software raid array using. This will ensure that the specified raid module is present at boottime, for the kernel to use when mounting the root device. If you have a different vendor install their tool if not yet present.
This technology is now used in almost all the it organizations looking for data redundancy and better performance. Software raid how to optimize software raid on linux. Command to see what scheduler is being used for disks. Softwareraid howto the linux documentation project. For raid5 linux was 30 % faster 440 mbs vs 340 mbs for reads. I evaluated the performance of a single, traditional 250 gb 3. Theres no better way to know how your recent upgrade or system tweaks are paying off. The i file is the default configuration file for php is is read when php starts up. Basically, we want to setup and tweak whatever is possible to get our io writes and. This variable you are referring to is related to raid rebuild speed. I have finally decided to upgrade the storage in the home theatre pc, by adding a third 3tb hard drive. How to set up software raid 0 for windows and linux pc gamer. This can be everything from creating custom preferences to installing software to make your usage more pleasant. How to set up a software raid on linux addictivetips.
It has better speed and compatibility than the motherboards and a cheap controllers fakeraid. The following hacks are used for recovering linux software raid, and to increase the speed of raid rebuilds. Jun 18, 2015 i have finally decided to upgrade the storage in the home theatre pc, by adding a third 3tb hard drive. With this program, users can create a software raid array in a matter of minutes. Dec 15, 2016 raid is a technology that is used to increase the performance andor reliability of data storage. Oct 20, 2016 how to benchmark your linux system theres no better way to know how your recent upgrade or system tweaks are paying off. Xfs on linux currently only supports pagesize or smaller blocks.
Software raid how to optimize software raid on linux using. Oct 17, 2014 for better performance raid 0 will be used, but we cant get the data if one of the drive fails. This howto describes how to use software raid under linux. The difference is not big between the expensive hw raid controller and linux sw raid. Helpful tips to speed up a linux sofware raid rebuild. Some io relates to how linux manages memory at a lowish level. Lets make a software raid 5 that will keep all of our files safe and fast to access. The only caveat is that im using linux centos 5 as a server with no win32 environment to run and no gui even for the linux. The comparison of these two competing linux raid offerings were done with two ssds of raid0 and raid1 and then four ssds using raid0, raid1, and raid10 levels. The default cpu scheduler in the mainline linux kernel is cfs. These numbers are consistent with what i get using a 6disk linux raid 10. We will also learn how to replace and remove faulty devices from software raid and how to add new devices to raid. We just need to remember that the smallest of the hdds or partitions dictates the arrays capacity. A combination of drives makes a group of disks to form a raid array or a set of raid which can be a minimum of 2 disks connected to a raid controller and making a logical volume or more, it can be a combination of more drives in a group.
The drives used for testing were four ocztoshiba trion 150 120gb ssds. But lamp default settings are not always best servers running a linux lamp stack need finetuning to optimize their performance. Ive personally seen a software raid 1 beat an lsi hardware raid 1 that was using the same drives. Vmware server, you run virtual guest operating systems inside a host operating system. I have a dell poweredge t105 at home and i am purchasing the following. Linux software raid often called mdraid or md raid makes the use of raid possible without a hardware raid controller. Firstly linux software raid is so well written in the kernel now that very little of the traffic actually hits the cpu. Centos fedora linux tricks performance ubuntu whmcpanel december 29, 2014 by balvinder singh published december 29, 2014 last modified june, 2016. Raid 6 is like raid 5, but the parity data are written to two drives.
For things like simple mirroring raid1 the data just needs to be written twice and the drive controller can do that itself with instructions from the kernel so no need to get cpu involved at all. Aug 17, 2015 the tweaking takes place when youre trying to setup the desktop environment for your daily tasks. Raid is a technology that is used to increase the performance andor reliability of data storage. Linux software raid mdadm testing is a continuation of the earlier standalone benchmarks. Linux software raid often called mdraid or mdraid makes the use of raid possible without a hardware raid controller. Configure software raid on a linux vm azure linux virtual. These disks can be hard discs, but there is a trend to also use the technology for ssd solid state drives. I have tried this advice for my raid 5 array, but currently my write performance is about 1550mbs smaller file lower performance. Apr 28, 2017 how to create a software raid 5 on linux.
Performance numbers for several configurations of storage devices. Raid 5 is a good allround system that combines efficient storage with excellent security and decent performance. We are basically writing one large multigig file to the array. We can use full disks, or we can use same sized partitions on different sized drives. Nobody likes a person that repeats himself over and over again, as it wastes time. A redundant array of inexpensive disks raid allows high levels of storage reliability. I currently have a proliant n40l with 4 seagate drives st3000dm0019yn166 which are 4k format, raid with 512k strip size. There is great software raid support in linux these days. Windows 8 comes with everything you need to use software raid, while the linux package mdadm is listed.
Plug them in and they behave like a big and fast disk. It addresses a specific version of the software raid layer, namely the 0. What is the preferred raid 5 tweaks for a webdatabasemail server. Learn basic concepts of software raid chunk, mirroring, striping and parity and essential raid device management commands in detail. For better performance raid 0 will be used, but we cant get the data if one of the drive fails. Once the node is up make sure your software raid 0 array is mounted on your mount point i. We will be publishing a series of posts on configuring different levels of raid with its software implementation in linux.
How to supercharge the performance of your lamp stack server. This document is a tutorialhowtofaq for users of the linux md kernel extension, the associated tools, and their use. The hw raid was a quite expensive usd 800 adaptec sas31205 pci express 12sataport pcie x8 hardware raid card. The storage was set up previously as raid 1, using the software mdadm solution for the two 3tb disks. Increase software raid5 write speed raid openmediavault. We will also see the step wise command how to stop and remove raid device by removing raid10 device here. For this purpose, the storage media used for this hard disks, ssds and so forth are simply connected to the computer as individual drives, somewhat like the direct sata ports on the motherboard. A lot of software raids performance depends on the cpu that is in use. Creating software raid0 stripe on two devices using. In our earlier articles, weve seen how to setup a raid 0 and raid 1 with minimum 2 number of disks. A few months ago i posted an article explaining how redundant arrays of inexpensive disks raid can provide a means for making your disk accesses faster and more reliable in this post i report on numbers from one of our servers running ubuntu linux.
A raid can be deployed using both software and hardware. The software raid10 driver has a number of options for tweaking block layout that can bring further performance benefits depending on your io load pattern see here for some simple benchmarks though im not aware of any distributions that support this for of raid 10 from install yet only the more traditional nested arrangement. Even though most tweaks are illustrated under windows 7vista, the general ideas can be applied to any os. Which one is recommended for file server and database server. How to create a software raid 5 in linux mint ubuntu. Muqss is available either as a standalone patch or as part of a wider patchset. This is the raid layer that is the standard in linux 2. Mdadm is linux based software that allows you to use the operating system to create and handle raid arrays with ssds or normal hdds.
In testing both software and hardware raid performance i employed six 750gb samsung sata drives in three raid configurations 5, 6, and 10. Where possible, information should be tagged with the minimum. In most raid setups like unraid, having 2 drives disabled is a much worse problem than one disabled. This is the raid layer that is the standard in linux2. To see how raid can improve performance, i created a test rig out of an average desktop machine with two identical serial ata hard drives. Hey, i have worked with linux for some time, but have not gotten into the specifics of hard drive tuning or software raid.
To setup raid 10, we need at least 4 number of disks. Because you are running multiple operating systems on a single server, you can imagine that the performance of that host system will be pushed to the maximum. Aug 30, 2011 so the processor impact of software raid looks to be trivial. In general, software raid offers very good performance and is relatively easy to maintain. Creating a software raid array in operating system software is the easiest way to go.
What is the preferred raid5 tweaks for a webdatabase. Its a common scenario to use software raid on linux virtual machines in azure to present multiple attached data disks as a single raid device. A raid system consists of two or more drives working in parallel. We go the through the process of raid recovery and restoration and learn raid recovery on the command line because it become so. How to supercharge the performance of your lamp stack. Besides its own formats for raid volumes metadata, linux software raid also supports external metadata formats, since version 2. Raid 10 is a combine of raid 0 and raid 1 to form a raid 10. Another level, linear has emerged, and especially raid level 0 is often combined with raid level 1. Nov 19, 2014 raid 10 is a combine of raid 0 and raid 1 to form a raid 10. In this post we will be going through the steps to configure software raid level 0 on linux.
The only solution is to install operating system with raid0 applied logical volumes to safe your important files. This is set during raid array creation time for the array in software raid, the chunkx option to. The softwareraid howto linux documentation project. Unfortunately, this software doesnt come with most distributions by default. Im using software raid0 because linux doesnt detect the raid if i use hardware it just detects the 4 disks individually. The best way to create a raid array on linux is to use the mdadm tool. If your array is in normal mode not rebuilding, it should not affect the system performance. One of the easiest methods to improve php performance is to increase the default memory limit specified in your i file. How can i create or readwrite a file in linux device driver.
Are there any tweaks i can make to the raid setup to improve speed. Typically this can be used to improve performance and allow for improved throughput compared to using just a single disk. Whats a good way to test my software raids disk io. Here we will use both raid 0 and raid 1 to perform a raid 10 setup with minimum of 4 drives. But the real question is whether you should use a hardware raid solution or a software raid solution. Raid contains a group or a set of arrays set of disks. Not too long ago my boss and myself came up with a wise idea to make a list of all the linux tweaks usually done to improve the performance of a linux system the idea has been taken to a higher level and each and every silly possible change that could improve the performance of the system has been added. You need to get every ounce of performance you can out of your system. On top of that i have lvm then publish that over my network as a iscsi target. Raid stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks which was later interpreted to redundant array of independent disks. It combines multiple available disks into 1 or more logical drive and gives you the ability to survive one or more drive failures. It is used to improve disk io performance and reliability of your server or workstation.
The abbreviation stands for redundant array of inexpensive disks. Whats a good way to test my software raid s disk io. I ran the benchmarks using various chunk sizes to see if that had an effect on either hardware or software configurations for the. What is the preferred raid5 tweaks for a webdatabasemail. The real performance numbers closely match the theoretical performance i described earlier. Mdadm is a commandline utility that allows for quick and easy manipulation of raid devices. Raid 0 was introduced by keeping only performance in mind. Lastly i hope the steps from the article to configure software raid 0 array on linux was helpful. Walkthrough of what i did to increase performance on my synology nas box during an expansion, and afterwards. Software raid is a type of raid implementation that utilizes operating systembased capabilities to construct and deliver raid services. Fortunately, linux makes redundant arrays of independent disks raid accessible on the desktop, even for costconscious users.
Mar 26, 2015 creating a software raid array in operating system software is the easiest way to go. I get 121mbs read and 162mbs write with ext4, or 120176 using an external journal device. This allows linux to use various firmware or driverbased raid volumes, also known as fake raid. It should replace many of the unmaintained and outofdate documents out there such as the software raid howto and the linux raid faq. There are different ways to connect to the motherboard such as tcpip through a nic, plugged in directly using pciepci, firewire, raid card, usb, etc. The hardware dominates in block output, getting 322mbsec aginst the 174mbsec achieved by software for aligned xfs, making for a 185% speed increase for. Software vs hardware raid nixcraft linux tips, hacks. I still prefer having raid done by some hw component that operates independently of the os. An alternative scheduler designed to be used on desktop computers is muqss, developed by con kolivas, which is focused on desktop interactivity and responsiveness. A redundant array of independent drives or disks, also known as redundant array of inexpensive drives or disks raid is an term for data storage schemes that divide andor replicate data among multiple hard drives.
The default value is 4096 bytes 4 kib, the minimum is 512, and the maximum is 65536 64 kib. A few tweaks to the i file can improve your lamp stacks performance significantly. Debian users may encounter problems using an initrd to mount their root filesystem from raid, if they have migrated a standard nonraid debian install to root on raid. I am currently using ext2 since it has no journaling. Walkthrough of what i did to increase performance on my. By adding a third drive and changing to a raid 5 format, the storage would increase from 3tb about 2. Jul 15, 2008 the main surprise in the first set of tests, on raid 5 performance, is that block input is substantially better for software raid. Raid can guard against disk failure, and can also improve performance over that of a single disk drive.