MLH wrote:

> One thing I noticed with recent kernels is that ata disk performance
> has decreased markedly on one of my machines, supposedly the fastest
> one of three fairly equivalent machines.
> [ ... ]
>     -------Sequential Output-------- ---Sequential Input-- --Random--
>     -Per Char- --Block--- -Rewrite-- -Per Char- --Block--- --Seeks---
>  MB K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU K/sec %CPU  /sec %CPU
> 100 45140 59.8 55066 42.7 53620 50.8 73079 84.2 359877 92.3 12769.8 65.3
> [ ... ]
> 100 25066 22.6 23989  7.3 29172 10.4 95010 96.2 415142 85.9 11538.2 45.3
> [ ... ]
> NetBSD 1.6ZG (APMLM) #0: Wed Jan  7 17:25:13 CST 2004
> total memory = 511 MB
> avail memory = 493 MB

Note that you're testing a 100MB file on a box that can effectively have
(a little bit less than) 493MB of buffers.  Look at the seeks-per-second
column of your bonnie results - no (non-solid-state) disk can do 10,000
seeks a second!

Try "bonnie -s 512" for a 512MB file - or possibly even larger.

Simon.
--
Simon Burge                            <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD Support and Service:         http://www.wasabisystems.com/