hIOmon SSD Performance Monitor - Understanding desktop usage patterns.

[Ao1]

that cannot be correct, because you are assuming that the latency is always the same here. it isnt. it changes with QD, and also with the type of access that you are doing. mixed read/write kills latency.

I only consider average latency as this was the only easy way I could compare. There are of course fluctuations on either side.

what are you talking about? look at the numbers here...how can you say that it is the same level? they arent even close!! this is from the graphic above where you posted this, if you look at the numbers....

Again I only consider average values.

you have .0239 v .0051 that is over twice as fast! also, you have 474.8354ms v 132.0012ms that is a 3x difference!
can you highlight the numbers that show where average response time for a single SSD drops to the average level of an SSD Raid 0 array?? i mean not to be incredulous or anything, but i am .

With page file on my average response time was 0.5101.ms

of course not. do the processes even max out the sequential read capability of your HDD? nope. again, not the amount, the latency is why they are faster. there are many programs that do not max out the speed of your hdd which are way faster with SSD. latency.

Before I started this I did not think my CPU being bottled neck was a problem, but now I relise that the CPU would clap out before the hard drive when pushed hard.

your thoughts on post 93? and this post? they both cover much the same info. maybe we are looking at different numbers.

I think I covered everything?

Comp, I do not try to say that raid is not faster (it clearly is ). What I try to establish is how well do I utilise my SSD based on my usage patterns. My CPU is a bit dated now (QX6850) and different results might arise with a faster set up. (hint, hint )

[josh1980]

Got some fascinating data in this thread. Very interesting read to say the least. I will say that this thread has proven ALOT of my observations. I've been disabling pagefiles for every computer that I have installed an x64 OS on. I've always built computers with at least 8GB of RAM when building a computer for Windows 7. I never used Vista since it was such a POC. Even my laptop has 8GB of RAM. I bought my Asus G51jx laptop solely because it has 4 RAM slots. First laptop I have ever seen that has 4 memory slots. In fact, I just ordered 4GB sticks for it 3 days ago.

Ao1 - Your formula for using queue depth and latency to get total IOPS is accurate, but also inaccurate. There's some tricks that the SSD controllers do to boost the IOPS. My guess is caching and pre-retrieving data. But from the most fundamental level, your formula is correct. I believe that the method SSDs use to increase IOPS is the same used to increase the sequential speeds. Theoretically, the random reads and writes should be the same as sequential, with a few exceptions(that being not having TRIMmed space available). The fact that we can get 200MB/sec read sequential but not 200MB/sec read random is interesting to me.

Anyway, good thread. I'll definitely be watching to see what others say in this thread. I'd be interested to see what the same OS imaged onto a single drive and RAID of 2 different model drives would show. I'm not sure what the tested drives were, but testing Intel versus Sandforce would be interesting.

Overall, I would say that the data tends to support my comments in another thread about Intel G3s.. and that is that the most important thing that needs to happen to SSDs is lower price and increased size. Performance-wise, we're doing very good at keeping the CPU full when requesting data from the hard drive.

And if you REALLY want performance, get LOTS of RAM and ditch the pagefile. It is interesting that there isn't as big of a performance change going to RAID0 from a single drive. It would appear that RAID0 is good for increasing total drive size, but very little else unless you are reading/writing massive amounts of data sequentially. There's also a latency penalty that is pretty significant for RAID0. I've noticed the RAID0 penalty when using RAMDrives in RAID0 too.

I don't know about anyone else, but the more RAM slots the better when it comes to buying/building computers. There will be an increase in the usage of the hard drive (±10% or so) but the latency improvement is HUGE. I've always spent the extra $$$ to get X58 instead of X55 motherboards because those 2 ramslots can add 8GB of RAM if you buy 4GB sticks. I've had 24GB in my gaming desktop since 2009 .

Kudos to Ao1 for spending the time to gather the data. It's nice to have cold hard facts to back up my observations .

[Ao1]

Thank you. It's been hard work, but the real thanks should go out to Overthere for providing a great piece of software to make it possible.

Just a few clarifications. I used two X25-M's. The I/O operation and performance metrics are "from the perspective of applications/processes and the OS (in contrast to the device perspective, i.e., as seen by the actual device "at the other end of the cable")". [Overthere post #16]

[overthere]

Thank you. It's been hard work, but the real thanks should go out to Overthere for providing a great piece of software to make it possible.

I too would like to thank Ao1 for all of his time and hard work.

And thanks also to Ao1 for his kind compliment again about the hIOmon software.

But as with any tool, the actual use of the tool - and moreover, the user of the tool - are also very important.

Otherwise it's just another tool on the shelf, no matter its merits.

So thanks again to Ao1 - and to the other folks in this forum (such as CT, Anvil, IanB, josh1980, and others) for their comments about and interest in the various topics discussed (and uncovered) in this thread.

[Ao1]

Here is a side by side comparison of HDD vs SSD vs SSD Raid 0 during boot up. (All done with the page file on). It's easy to see why HDD sucks during boot up and I think it puts a perspective on the difference between SSD and SSD raid 0.

I don't think there is anything more I can show now, but it would be nice to see other results from faster set ups.

[Ao1]

By the way I have used the second SSD as a storage drive. This has allowed me to keep my static data on SSD, so I can at last get rid of my storage HDD.

I can already see notible beneifts to this. For example I have 60GB of mp3's. When they were on HDD it took forever to retrieve media information and find the playlists. Now it just screams through it and this leaves my OS fully responsive in a way that did not happen when they were on HDD.

Also all my personal folders are defaulted on to the SSD and that also really speeds thing up as well. Signicant noticable improvements over using a Raid 0 with a HDD storage drive.

[Ao1]

Now I try to look at the best SSD’s and configurations for the key desktop performance metrics. I dug out the WEI thread to re-look at the WEI sub-scores based on the outcome of the monitoring with hIOmon.

The four key metrics for desktop use that seem to stand out are:

• Responsiveness: Disk Random 16.0 Read (Higher is better)
• Responsiveness: Average IO Rate (Lower is better)
• Responsiveness: Overall (Lower is better)
• Average Read Time with Random Writes (Lower is better)

Unsurprisingly SteveRO’s Acards and Lowfat’s ioXtreme really shine, however it’s interesting that the same SSD’s perform very differently with these metrics on different chipsets. For example my X25-M on ICH9 performed very differently to SteveRO’s X25-M on the 680i chipset.

Also looking at Tiltevros degraded vs fresh scores on the LSI 9211 it is these metrics that get hit the hardest.

Anvil’s post comparing SATA 2.0 & SATA 3.0 with the C300 would seem to suggest that for desktop use the SATA 3.0 would be better despite the fact that maximum latency is through the roof. The total run time is also lower.

CRUCIAL C300 256GB (Marvell 9128 6Gb/s on-board controller GB X58A-UD7)
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 353.08 MB/s 7.9
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 258.52 MB/s 7.9
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.73 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 8.57 units 7.4
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 1.52 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Overall 13.02 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 213.23 MB/s 7.4
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.887 ms 7.7
> Latency: 95th Percentile 1.546 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 373.757 ms 5.5
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.900 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:01:07.91

C300 256GB (ICH10R)
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Read 270.03 MB/s 7.6
> Disk Random 16.0 Read 207.44 MB/s 7.8
> Responsiveness: Average IO Rate 0.70 ms/IO 7.9
> Responsiveness: Grouped IOs 8.70 units 7.4
> Responsiveness: Long IOs 1.58 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: Overall 13.78 units 7.9
> Responsiveness: PenaltyFactor 0.0
> Disk Sequential 64.0 Write 216.43 MB/s 7.4
> Average Read Time with Sequential Writes 0.936 ms 7.7
> Latency: 95th Percentile 1.601 ms 7.9
> Latency: Maximum 1.747 ms 7.9
> Average Read Time with Random Writes 0.934 ms 7.9
> Total Run Time 00:01:09.42

[Anvil]

Great work Ao1

I'm still a bit busy but I'll try to find some time to compare C300 64GB single vs raid-0 on my AMD rig.

How did you go on to get the bootlog metrics?

[Ao1]

Hi Anvil, to get the bootlog I reset the SSDPerfAnalysisFS script with a report period of 2 minutes. I then rebooted, waited two minutes without doing anything and then took the results from the Presentation Client as soon as they appeared.

I had to use 2 minutes as the HDD took that long after Windows first opened before everything fully loaded. With SSD 30 seconds should be more than enough.

It will be great to see some comparative results. I’m over the moon with my set up now. I have the page file switched off and all my data is on SSD. It’s really made a difference.

[Anvil]

Hmm,

It doesn't look like it works on AMD systems?

It installs but I can't get the manager to start!

[Nizzen]

Is it possible to fill me in to the Winsat chart?

Areca 1880ix-24-4GB + 1x 128gb C300

[overthere]

Hmm,

It doesn't look like it works on AMD systems?

It installs but I can't get the manager to start!

Hi Anvil,

Please take a look in the Application Event Log to see what entries have been added by the hIOmon software.

In particular, please check to see if there is an entry with a Source of "hIOmonGr" and an Event ID of "499" (which indicates that the hIOmon software has expired).

[Ao1]

Is it possible to fill me in to the Winsat chart?

Areca 1880ix-24-4GB + 1x 128gb C300

Insane. Done.

[Anvil]

...
"hIOmonGr" and an Event ID of "499" (which indicates that the hIOmon software has expired).

Hi overthere

You're spot on, I found that exact entry.

What do I do?

[Ao1]

Anvil, the reason I did the bootlog was because it is a relatively fixed work load that is very hard to replicate between different drives with normal use. I think it is also the hardest workload that occurs on most PC’s. Anything exciting post boot is likely to be more about sequential read/ write speeds.
When the pc boots ~ 400MB of mostly random data gets read in a very short time. (Well on SSD at least ) That kind of load is hard to achive with normal use. Special applications are obviously different like VM’s etc.

Edit: When I monitored 30 minutes of using my typical apps I read and wrote loads more data than occured during boot up, but the IOPS were way down. I guess that was because most of what I was doing involved sequential reads, like game loading, music etc.

[overthere]

Hi overthere

You're spot on, I found that exact entry.

What do I do?

Probably the best route (rather than tie up the discussion within this thread) is for me to send a PM to you with instructions.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

[Anvil]

Hi overthere

Thanks for the PM.

No problem at all, will continue testing tomorrow.

[Anvil]

2 min monitoring
i7 920 UD7, 2R0 C300 64GB, no apps installed

bootlog_2.PNG bootlog_4.PNG

Installing Security Essentials right now and will do a new run shortly. (Done)

AMD w/HDD

Ao1, it looks like the F3 outperforms your HDD.
Not sure about Data Transferred, seems a bit low.

amd_bootlog_1_samsung_F3.PNG

[Ao1]

The hard drive I used was a Seagate Barracuda so it’s going to be slower than the F3 but I think the biggest difference is that my system image was of a fully loaded OS (Win 7/ 64) with apps and games installed. That seems to make big difference as I incurred 400MB reads vs 100MB on you F3.

The total reads/ IOPS on your SSD raid are also around half of mine.

Trying to compare my results with yours is going to be difficult/ impossible without using the same system image. The key however is do you see similar outcomes between different configurations as I did.

[Anvil]

My setup is a full W7 x64 install + the basic necessities. (all windows updates, AV, java)

The AMD software setup is 100% identical to the Intel setup, except for some drivers for the PERC 6/i and the LSI 9260.
Thats why I found the AMD metrics a bit strange, it's a single drive but the number of MBs should have been closer to the Intel system.

What "startup" programs do you have installed?
I know we won't be able to compare 100% but we could have been much closer if I installed some or most of your apps. (most apps don't/shouldn't make a difference to the bootup process)

[Ao1]

Intriguing. I made the image from an OS that I had been using for around 6 months. As you say most apps shouldn’t make a difference to the bootup process. In post 5 I show the Windows Task Manager, which shows most of what is running on that image.

Apart from the difference of what got loaded during boot on my system image maybe the 2GB pagefile helped your HDD? When I ran the boot up on HDD I had the pagefile set to be managed by Windows.

[overthere]

The AMD software setup is 100% identical to the Intel setup, except for some drivers for the PERC 6/i and the LSI 9260.
Thats why I found the AMD metrics a bit strange, it's a single drive but the number of MBs should have been closer to the Intel system.

For starters, here are a couple of factors that might be considered:

One factor is when the hIOmon software begins monitoring the requested I/O operations and collecting the requested I/O operation performance metrics.

As part of the hIOmon software installation process, the hIOmon software is configured so that the hIOmon Manager service component will, by default, automatically start when the system is started.

In addition, the hIOmon software is configured so that the hIOmon Manager, when started, will automatically load/activate the "default" Filter Selection. (A "Filter Selection" is a hIOmon configuration file that specifies the types of I/O operations that are to be monitored for which particular files, devices, and/or processes, the types of I/O operation performance metrics to collect, etc.)

So in short when using the "SSDPerfAnalysisFS" script, the hIOmon Manager begins capturing the summary I/O operation performance metrics (based upon the "SSDPerfAnalysisFS" Filter Selection) when the hIOmon Manager service is started.

Another factor to consider is that (looking at the screenshots above for the SSD 2R0 C300 and the F3 HDD systems), the summary metrics shown are for the first 2 minutes after the hIOmon software began its collection of the I/O operation performance metrics.

Indeed, the SSD system transferred 199,837,696 read bytes during this 2 minute period (as opposed to the 102,762,496 read bytes transferred with the F3 HDD system) - nearly double.

And the SSD system also performed 10,868 read I/O operations (in order to transfer the 200MB of data), which was nearly twice the number of read I/O operations (5,662) performed upon F3 HDD system.

Moreover, a much higher percentage (98%) of the read I/O operations upon the SSD system were fast I/O operations (i.e., completed in less than one millisecond), where upon the F3 HDD system the fast I/O operation percentage was only 57.4%

Overall, the read I/O operation activity (e.g., minimum and average response times) were an order of magnitude (or more) faster upon the SSD system.

So the SSD system was basically able to read in twice the amount of data during the 2 minute time period.

A deeper analysis would be required to determine what exactly was being read in (e.g., which files) and by whom (e.g., which processes) during the 2 minute period.

This also applies to the write I/O operation activity, where there was more write data transferred upon the F3 HDD system (21MB) than the SSD system (15MB).

[Anvil]

Hi overthere

I know that there's more to it , the OS can't boot off the "hIOmon software" and the hIOmon software can't be the first service to start.
I expect that the bootup metrics would generally be misleading when comparing installs across different computers.
It should be consistent for that exact pc/install though. (still there will be activities that are not captured/monitored due to the nature of booting)

Booting is not what brought me to trying the software though.
It does bring quite a lot of interesting points to the table (also while booting), like QD, comparing: seq. Vs random io, pagefile vs no pagefile, single drives vs raid and I would expect for determining optimal strip sizes.

I've found hIOmon to be a great tool for capturing/monitoring tasks.

I'll be comparing i/o on VMs on both HDDs and SSDs on different controllers this weekend, should be interesting and probably very time consuming

Regarding my HDD vs SSD bootup metrics
The F3 boots in about 21-22 seconds (using boottimer) and so the period to monitor could easily have been set to 60 seconds (or less), I don't think that would have changed anything, that is unless there were some random scheduled activities that started during the monitoring period. (i.e. windows update, AV scan, ...)
Like you've already mentioned, it's all down to when the monitoring starts.
Both the SSD and the HDD are capable of reading/writing TBs of data during the 2 minute monitoring period so that's a moot point wrt to comparing total i/o during bootup.
Looking at the idle/busy time percentages confirms that most of the time it's just idling during the 2 minute period.
(and that the idle part is in favour of the SSDs )

[overthere]

I know that there's more to it , the OS can't boot off the "hIOmon software" and the hIOmon software can't be the first service to start.

I expect that the bootup metrics would generally be misleading when comparing installs across different computers.
It should be consistent for that exact pc/install though. (still there will be activities that are not captured/monitored due to the nature of booting)

...

I'll be comparing i/o on VMs on both HDDs and SSDs on different controllers this weekend, should be interesting and probably very time consuming

...

Looking at the idle/busy time percentages confirms that most of the time it's just idling during the 2 minute period.
(and that the idle part is in favour of the SSDs )

Hi Anvil,

I would agree that there's more to it!

BTW, the hIOmon software does provide an option to collect I/O trace and/or summary metrics during the actual system boot/start process.

I briefly mentioned this option in a prior post (#32), but let me know if you need any additional information:

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...9&postcount=32

In any case, the booting process should be fairly consistent for the exact same pc/install as you said (given the same login timing, no "extraneous" activities performed by the startup tasks, etc.).

Good observation by you about the idle/busy time percentages.

And the various metrics captured by the hIOmon software (e.g., the random/sequential access metrics) can indeed be helpful in a variety of tasks (such as VM performance analyses as you mentioned).

Looking forward to hearing about your VM I/O comparisons!

[Ao1]

My setup is a full W7 x64 install + the basic necessities. (all windows updates, AV, java)

The AMD software setup is 100% identical to the Intel setup, except for some drivers for the PERC 6/i and the LSI 9260.
Thats why I found the AMD metrics a bit strange, it's a single drive but the number of MBs should have been closer to the Intel system.

What "startup" programs do you have installed?
I know we won't be able to compare 100% but we could have been much closer if I installed some or most of your apps. (most apps don't/shouldn't make a difference to the bootup process)

Thanks to Lsdmeasap I found a useful little app that monitors the boot up process. I’m now running a fairly fresh OS and I have not installed all the apps yet, however my CPU is already maxing out.

When I get a chance I will reinstall the original system image to see the impact on the CPU. It would seem that the amount and types of apps installed actually have quite a big impact on the OS boot up process.