Parity-Sync speed

just put together my own system and it works 

the only thing im a bit confused about the the speed of the Parity-Sync, that is currently taking very long (understatement)

is this correct, or is there something wrong?

Total size:  390,711,352  KB

Current position: 462,656 (0.1%)

Estimated speed: 857 KB/sec

Estimated finish: 7584.3 minutes

btw, running celeron m 380 (1.6 gig), 4x samsung sata 400 gig @ 150mb/s

motherboard uses intel 915G chipset and intel ICH6 N/B for sata

ty

Let it sit for about 2 minutes and check again.  Often the first reading you get upon Start of a new array is not accurate because the system is trying to also mount the drives which takes a lot of i/o.

Also what is you setup with hard drives? Do you have them in moblie racks or connected directly into the MOBO? How many hard drives? Are you using IDE/SATA.  What kind of cables round or ribion?

well, after 2 hours it still is @ +- 800kb/s

im using 4x 400gig sata disks, which are connected directly the the motherboard

ICH6 intel sata can do 150mb/s, so i jumpered the 4 disks to 150 (instead of 300 default)

anyone any idea's?

maybe some commands to brenchmark some stuff, to locate the problem.

the thing that i have noticed it that disk2 takes longer to mount.

disk1 and 3 are done at the same time, but disk2 takes about 60sec longer.

dunno if this helps, or just is normal

btw, my monitor goes blank after some time (15 to 30 mins), any connection with the slow sync?

did some checking, by removing de drives one by one, and switching them around.

with 4 drives i have +- 800kb\s

with 3 drives i have +- 1200kb\s

with 2 drives i have +- 1,600kb\s

also when i switch the disks around, the preformance stays the same.

so could it be that the sata chip just can handle it?

I don't have any experience with the SATA setup... we will have to wait for Tom to see why it is killing your speed. When I run parity it starts at 16,500 and then ends around 39,000 once a couple of hard drives spin down....  I have had issues with bad drives, bad racks, and bad cables that killed my speed.  But, it looks like you have eliminated a lot of that... so I am honestly not sure and we will have to see what Tom says.  Also; have you telneted (I don't think that is a word..) to the array and tailed it?  If not, do that and report any errors....

Telnet to array login with root

and type this in tail -f /var/log/syslog

i have no idea if there are errors in here 

Tower login: root

Linux 2.4.33.

root@Tower:~# tail -f /var/log/syslog

Sep 24 12:27:43 Tower kernel: md(9,1):Using r5 hash to sort names

Sep 24 12:27:43 Tower kernel: md(9,1):can't shrink filesystem on-line

Sep 24 12:27:43 Tower kernel: md(9,2):Using r5 hash to sort names

Sep 24 12:27:43 Tower kernel: md(9,2):can't shrink filesystem on-line

Sep 24 12:27:58 Tower kernel: reiserfs: checking transaction log (device md(9,3)

) ...

Sep 24 12:27:58 Tower kernel: for (md(9,3))

Sep 24 12:27:59 Tower kernel: md(9,3):Using r5 hash to sort names

Sep 24 12:28:00 Tower kernel: md(9,3):can't shrink filesystem on-line

Sep 24 12:28:01 Tower nmbd[1123]: [2006/09/24 12:28:01, 0] nmbd/nmbd.c:terminate

(56)

Sep 24 12:28:01 Tower nmbd[1123]:  Got SIGTERM: going down...

Log looks okay from there, keep tailing and post if you get any errors

X4n,

Yes, there is something wrong.  Here are some steps that can help us to figure out the problem.

Even though the rate is very slow, does it still make "progress" ?  That is, does the progress counter increase each time you refresh the Main page?

Reboot the system, then as soon as you're able to connect, go to the Management Utility and Stop the array.  Use telnet to bring up a command window and enter these commands:

cat /var/log/syslog
hdparm -I /dev/sdb
hdparm -I /dev/sdc
hdparm -I /dev/sdd
hdparm -I /dev/sde

Now right-click the telnet window title bar, click Edit -> Select all, then Edit -> copy, and paste the output to an email to [email protected].

Also, what motherboard are you using?

i mailed u the information.

and yes it still increases, even got it up to 2.3% after 3 hours (omg) @ +- 800 kb\s

Interesting, looking at your logs, your SATA devices are showing up as IDE devices.  According to the 'hdparm -I /dev/hda' command you typed, they should be running in UltraDMA mode5 (which is fast), but your resync speed is what I'd expect if the drives were operating in PIO mode (which is sloooow).  Can't explain this...

You motherboard, an Aopen i915Ga-HFS, should be just fine for unRAID.  I went to the Aopen website & downloaded the manual.  Something to try is this: go into your bios to the Integrated Peripherals section.  Select 'OnChip IDE Device', and let's try some different settings for the 'On-Chip Serial ATA'.  Our goal here is to have the bios treat the SATA controller as a native SATA controller, and not emulate an IDE controller.  I'd probably start with setting this to 'Enhanced Mode'.

I no longer have a m/b which implements this SATA "emulation" mode, but you'll know it's rigth when unRAID Server detects the hard drives as SATA.

omg, i never heard of this sort of sata "emulation".

i just put it on sata only since i only use the sata 

but u were dead on, put it in Enhanced Mode and sync speeds are true the roof (starting @ 35 mb\s)

just transfered a 3.5 gig movie over a 100 mbit network under 6 mins (9.5mb\s flat out)

turned out too be that simple.

thx for all the help and this is one too remember 

I'm glad you got it going!  Guess who we have to thank for 'emulation' mode?  That's right, Microsoft!  For those who have tried to install Windows on a SATA device - you know what I'm talking about.  You have to stop the setup process at a certain point and use a floppy (only) to load your SATA drivers. Even doing that, many times still won't work.  Anyway, m/b manufacturers, wanting to sell more m/b's, got tired of waiting for M$ to fix this so they went ahead and invented "emulation" mode.  Amazing.

X4n: CONGRATS MAN!!!!!! glad you have your array up and running. I am telling you, unRAID is awesome and if perfect for many applications... and now that we have read/write performance... well I sure would think this should take off!!!

im really glad, and suprised by the pure speed it has now.

transpering some movies from windows to it now, and it goes 9.5mb\s all out.

i have lots of HDTV content and ill try some out tomorrow (its 23:25 here now).

read write hdtv simultanious, and i even think i can get 2 reads and a write going (hdtv prolly @ 8mbit\s, some 1.5mbit\s in h264).

lets hope unraid can take it.