FreeBSD + Disk speed

[graudeejs]

I got IDE disk (160G) and SATA150(250G) disk
Currently:
FreeBSD is on SATA disk
Torrents are downloaded to SATA disk
Files are archived on IDE disk...

I'm wondering if this setup would be better in terms of performance:
FreeBSD on IDE
Files archived on IDE
Torrents are downloaded to SATA
/usr/ports on SATA (optional)
/usr/src on SATA (optional)
/tmp on SATA (optional)

I use my pc for desktop.
I download torrents a lot (at high speed)...
and i think once FreeBSD is loaded disk usage for it is very minimal
That;s why i'm thinking if putting FreeBSD on slower disk, and running most things that needs speed on faster disk would increase performance...

Bough disks are and will be encrypted

Filesystem         Size    Used   Avail Capacity  Mounted on
/dev/ad4s1a        496M     51M    405M    11%    /
devfs              1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/ad4s2.elig    5.9G    449M    5.0G     8%    /home
/dev/ad4s2.elif     12G     32K     11G     0%    /tmp
/dev/ad4s2.elid    9.8G    3.6G    5.5G    40%    /usr
/dev/ad4s2.elie    1.0G    150M    777M    16%    /var
/dev/ad4s3.elid    200G     48G    136G    26%    /home/Files
/dev/ad0s1d.eli    146G     64G     71G    48%    /home/Archive

ad4 is SATA
ad0 is IDE
atm

[phoenix]

I'd put FreeBSD on ad0 for sure. /, /usr, /usr/local, /var at least. Put a swap partition on both, so the kernel stripes swap access across them both.

Then put /home on ad4.

That way, OS activity happens on one disk, and user activity happens on the other.

[graudeejs]

I've read your replay, when i already set up my system.

ok, this is what i did.

/dev/ad0s1.elia    496M     51M    405M    11%    /
devfs              1.0K    1.0K      0B   100%    /dev
/dev/ad0s1.elid    496M    113M    343M    25%    /var
/dev/ad0s1.elie    6.8G    2.2G    4.0G    36%    /usr
/dev/ad0s3.elid    9.7G    3.9G    5.0G    44%    /home
/dev/ad4s1.elid     14G     82K     12G     0%    /tmp
/dev/ad0s4.elid    126G     47G     69G    40%    /home/Archive
/dev/ad4s4.elid    206G     13G    176G     7%    /home/Files
/dev/ad4s3.elid    2.9G    476M    2.2G    17%    /usr/src
/dev/ad4s3.elie    2.9G    477M    2.2G    17%    /usr/ports
swap on bough disk 512M each
ram 2G

i separated /usr/src and /usr/ports from usr because:
1) i don't want them to be dumped
2) ports are being updated frequently
3) i believe it'll increase performance when i compile them

home isn't used much so i left it on slower disk.
All files that are accessed most of times are in /home/Files (on SATA), here i download stuff
and /home/Archive (on ide) where i keep photos and music and listening to music ain't the same as downloading torrents from local tracker (very good speed)

also system is backed to /home/Files (SATA)

i will probably cp 1 backup to /home/Archive once in while (just to be sure)

Everything is encrypted....
Now the only thing i did wrong is i set Soft updates for /root (by accident)
and now i can\t figure how to reset, that without ruing everything...
i boot from flash...

i guess, i need to make minimal usb pendrive bootable fbsd


EDIT:
I think this new setup is way better than my old one

[vermaden]

You should launch gstat while running performance problems and you will know which partitions are used mostly.

[graudeejs]

dT: 1.005s  w: 1.000s
 L(q)  ops/s    r/s   kBps   ms/r    w/s   kBps   ms/w   %busy Name
    1    285    285   1312    1.0      0      0    0.0   14.4| ad0
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s2
    1    285    285   1312    1.0      0      0    0.0   14.5| ad0s3
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s4
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s2b.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s2b.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s2b
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s2c
    2    284    284   1306    1.3      0      0    0.0   16.6| ad0s3.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| acd0
    0     64      0      0    0.0     64   2707    2.3    8.6| ad4
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1.elia
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1.elic
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1.elid
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s1.elie
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s4.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s4.elic
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s4.elid
    0     64      0      0    0.0     64   2707    4.9   20.5| ad4s4.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad0s3.elic
    2    284    284   1306    1.4      0      0    0.0   16.7| ad0s3.elid
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| da0
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s1
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s2
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s3
    0     64      0      0    0.0     64   2707    2.3    8.8| ad4s4
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s4.elic
    0     64      0      0    0.0     64   2707    4.9   20.7| ad4s4.elid
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s3.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s3.elic
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s3.elid
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s3.elie
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s1.eli
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s2b
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s2c
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s1.elic
    0      0      0      0    0.0      0      0    0.0    0.0| ad4s1.elid

atm, i'm downloading 700M file to SATA, backing & compressing system from IDE to SATA, copying files form usb pen to SATA

[phoenix]

Originally Posted by killasmurf86

Now the only thing i did wrong is i set Soft updates for /root (by accident)
and now i can\t figure how to reset, that without ruing everything...
i boot from flash...

tunefs(8)

[vermaden]

@killasmurf86

You may also check GJurnal, it seems to get better performance with multiple transfers then SoftUpdates.

[graudeejs]

Originally Posted by phoenix

tunefs(8)

Ye, i know, but it ain't that easy.
I fixed it yesterday.


I wasn't able to use tunefs on root.
So i made another bootable usb-pendrive with custom kernel.
and using it i attached encrypted root and turned of soft updates.

[graudeejs]

Originally Posted by vermaden

@killasmurf86

You may also check GJurnal, it seems to get better performance with multiple transfers then SoftUpdates.

I tried using GJurnal, but .... it complained, that there is no journal...
What does this mean?


also, i would appreciate if we could solve this problem


When i download torrents with good speed, BSD freezes for few tenths of seconds....
I would love to find way to avoid this (without buying new, better hardware. and i know i can limit upload/download speed)

The speed that shows rtorrent, is not maximum, that i can get
Sometimes i can get up to 13000KB (as rtorrent shows, what it means KB/s, or Kb/s?)

rtorrent uses a lot of CPU% while downloading


EDIT: this is not disk encryption issue, i had it before i encrypted my drives

[vermaden]

Have checked this:
http://freebsd.org/handbook/geom-gjournal.html