Ubuntu 9.10 with ext4 filesystem on Linux RAID5, superb performance!

[sammynl]

Hi,

Just wanted to share with the Ubuntu DIY folks, i did a clean install of the new Ubuntu Server 64-bit release, version 9.10 and formatted the Linux RAID5 array (6*1TB and 256K chunksize) with the new, now native ext4 linux filesystem (mkfs -t ext4 /dev/md0). I heard ext4 would be faster and it is!

Reading 10 GB file from NAS: speed at least 108 MB/sec or more.


Writng 4 GB file to NAS: speed at least 82MB/sec or more.


Writing 10 GB file to NAS: speed at least 70MB/sec or more.


Compared to previous tests with Ubuntu 9.04 - ext3, performance is abt. 10-15% better with Ubuntu 9.10 - ext4 and there is no significant speeddrop when working with very large files like 4 -10GB HD media stuff. I think Ubuntu Server 9.10 with Samba and Linux RAID makes the perfect NAS.


Root and RAID array with ext4:



NAS hardware:

• Intel Celeron Dual Core 2 Ghz.
• Intel DG965OT microATX motherboard. (6 o/b SATA ports)
• 6 * Samsung Spinpoint F1 HD103UJ - 1TB.
• 4Gb DDR2 667 Mhz RAM.
• Promise TX 2300 controller for 2.5" 160GB OS harddrive.
• Antec NSK6580 casing (with 6 * 3.5" drive slots).

[erezsolan]

Very nice. BTW, how did you test speed? I can see that was a regular SMB copy, but I guess you didn't copy the file from a single drive machine into the NAS. Am I correct?

[sammynl]

Originally Posted by erezsolan

Very nice. BTW, how did you test speed? I can see that was a regular SMB copy, but I guess you didn't copy the file from a single drive machine into the NAS. Am I correct?

Hi, that's correct the client is a Vista X64 SP2 machine with network mappings to samba shares running on a 4-disk RAID0 array (Samsung HD501LJ disks) hence client performance is always better than the RAID5 NAS performance. Test results are the maximum the NAS can do if the client is not being the bottleneck so i think these results are fairly correct just to see what the NAS can do as Samba server.