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Old 19th December 2013
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Default softraid crypto compared to geom_eli (geli)

Encrypted file-system characterizations were performed with bonnie++ on the same machine with the same disk configuration (of course).

OpenBSD-5.4-amd64 softraid crypto (dmesg)

Code:
Version  1.97       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency   1     -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
colossus.bohemi 16G   283  99 34870  98  7577  25   359  99  9910   3 158.1  29
Latency             55202us   24219us   40287us   39418us   36989us     492ms
Version  1.97       ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
colossus.bohemia.ne -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16   795  60 +++++ +++  1631  66   799  59 +++++ +++  1599  68
Latency             79681us     168us     885us   27069us     161us    1008us
FreeBSD-9.2-amd64 geom_eli (dmesg)

Code:
Version  1.97       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency   1     -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
colossus        16G   339  99 100724  25 12540   7   628  99 57999   8 449.2  15
Latency             25403us     413ms    2993ms   18898us     391ms     333ms
Version  1.97       ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
colossus            -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16   630   3 +++++ +++  1086   3   629   3 +++++ +++  1066   4
Latency              9551us     207us    1142us   28115us     178us    1170us
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Old 20th December 2013
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@hanzer

Could you try converting the results through bon_csv2html (comes with bonnie++) and post it here? It would be more readable than the output you posted.
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Old 20th December 2013
ocicat ocicat is offline
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Post the output of mount(8) specifying no options.

Soft updates (see Section 14.6 of the FAQ...) may help with your performance concerns.
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Old 21st December 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by s0xxx View Post
@hanzer

Could you try converting the results through bon_csv2html (comes with bonnie++) and post it here? It would be more readable than the output you posted.
Forum HTML code is Off it seems, though I might have missed something. Next week I will install a four-disk RAID5 array (on the test machine) in addition to the existing two-disk RAID0 array. I would like to evaluate PostgreSQL performance - on both arrays, on encrypted and unencrypted partitions - for both FreeBSD and OpenBSD. I've been rebuilding often while exploring the various characteristics of different configurations. If I don't explicitly save data then it's lost. If anyone has any recommendations for specific tests, configurations, and/or data that should be collected, let me know and I'll do what I can to collect it and present it in a reasonable fashion.
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Old 21st December 2013
J65nko J65nko is offline
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I understand encrypted hard disks can be useful on a laptop that because of it's use is difficult to secure physically.

But why would you want to put a database on a encrypted RAID5? Please enlighten me
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Old 21st December 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by J65nko View Post
...why would you want to put a database on a encrypted RAID5
A question I find more interesting is - why wouldn't you want to put a database on an encrypted RAID5?
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Old 21st December 2013
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  • Each layer between a block to be read or written and the read or write adds both complexity and a possibility for an error.
  • RAID and/or encryption/decryption both add to this complexity. It does not matter if you are using software or hardware implementations of these.
  • An error will most commonly occur through human error. The more complexity, the greater the risk of human error.
  • Less commonly, an error/failure will occur through software error. The same relative level of risk is involved if this is "software RAID / software encryption" or if these are "hardware" implementations. The only difference is where the software is executed.
  • There will always be hardware failures with storage devices; which is why manfuacturers publish MTBF and related specifications.
Depending on the types of errors that occur, and errors will occur -- human, software, or hardware -- the risk of data loss is of critical concern. Every layer of complexity increases the risk of data loss. The prudent storage infrastructure architect will endeavor to mitigate these risks.

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I spent several decades in IT infrastructure consulting, sales, marketing and management, specializing in data storage infrastructures . For whatever that may be worth.
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Old 21st December 2013
Martillo Martillo is offline
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I am quite happy with the RAID1 performance, even if my disks are not the better to be paired. I wrote a post weeks about it. I even encrypted a partition on this RAID1. I can say that what I like of softraid is its consistent performace.

A note about encryption on laptops or frequency variable processors: The CPU frequency affects largely to encryption performance.
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Old 22nd December 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Martillo View Post
...The CPU frequency affects largely to encryption performance.
softraid crypto does seem to be CPU intensive (unnecessarily?). I've been surprised recently to see (on one particular machine) that geom_eli has a significantly lower CPU load with [overall] significantly better performance.
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Old 22nd December 2013
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Quote:
Originally Posted by jggimi View Post
Each layer between a block to be read or written and the read or write adds both complexity and a possibility for an error.
The goals of mission-critical, safety-critical and security-critical systems are not necessarily achieved through Luddism

Joking aside, I hear what you're saying. Software is fundamentally fragile; competence is fickle and fleeting. Strategies for probable contingencies can mitigate risk but there is a point at which we all just have to roll the dice and deal with what comes to us.

Whoa, shove me into the shallow water.
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Old 26th December 2013
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The test results with six 146GB 10kRPM U320 SCSI disks in a RAID5 array (with HP Smart Array 6404 RAID controller):

Code:
| initialize DB     | set scaling factor: 70  |
|-------------------+-------------------------|
| pgbench -i bench1 | pgbench -i -s 70 bench1 |


| Test         | command                            |
|--------------+------------------------------------|
| Read-Write   | pgbench -c 4 -j 2 -T 600 bench1    |
| Read-Only    | pgbench -c 4 -j 2 -T 600 -S bench1 |
| Simple Write | pgbench -c 4 -j 2 -T 600 -N bench1 |

Number of transactions processed:

| OS / Partition    | Read-Write | Read-Only | Simple Write |
|-------------------+------------+-----------+--------------|
| FreeBSD uncrypted |     207699 |   3037812 |       233599 |
| FreeBSD encrypted |     138485 |   2816533 |       201539 |
| OpenBSD uncrypted |      91896 |    135979 |        94823 |
| OpenBSD encrypted |      72809 |    137021 |        76443 |
bonnie++ file-system characterizations.

64GB partitions were used for all tests. Default configurations for Postgresql, softraid-crypto, and geli were used (basic recipes from the handbook or FAQ).

Conclusion: I think there might be something wrong with OpenBSD's ciss(4) driver.
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