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StarWind performance matrix?

Posted: Thu Apr 03, 2008 7:05 pm
by eal
Current test machines:
(1) Win 2003 STD 64-bit SP2 with 1.5 GiB RAM + StarWind 3.5.3
(2) Win XP PRO 32-bit SP2 with 1 GiB RAM + MSiSCSIInit/StarPort

TTCP says (1) and (2) have a link that can do about 40 Mbit/s.

HDTune says average transfer rate for the SATA disk I will publish from (1) as iSCSI LUN is about 70 Mb/s.

Initiator on (2) logs on the LUN. I format it and it's ready. I run HDTune and it says 25 Mb/s.

0) What should I change to enhance the transfer rate?

1) At present, with version 3.5.3, what is best? StarWind for x86 or for x86_64?

2) Does running StarWind on desktop versus server versions of Windows affect the performance (throughput as seen from initiator's point of view)?

3) hw versus sw iSCSI initiators: how much does a hw initiator increase the throughput?

4) after configuring the Windows TCP/IP stack as described in this forum, what other changes should one perform on Windows to enhance throughput?

5) Is there a matrix where I can find the penalty/boost factopr I get when I choose this or that? (OS, RAM, physical disk, HBA, cabling, parmeters)

Who edited my message?

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:56 am
by eal
Who edited my message? I didn't.

Anyway, thank you.

What I don't understand fully is why the machine where StarWind runs in does not show a 100% CPU usage, nor a 40 Mbit/s network usage. Does it mean that it is actually the I/O subsystem that forces the system in idle waits?

Posted: Fri Apr 04, 2008 7:27 pm
by anton (staff)
Sorry it was me who had hit the wrong button :(

0) Nothing. Your network is not working slowly, it's simply AWOL.

1) No difference between 32-bit and 64-bit versions.

2) No difference.

3) With the modern TCP offload NICs hardware iSCSI adapters are redundant. Including iSCSI offload engines.

4) You need to optimize I/O subsystem.

5) I don't think we have any :(((