Hi All!

Anyone on the list using the ciss driver? Its being tested on an HP
Proliant DL380 G3 server with a Smart Array 5i controller. Preliminary
findings reveal that I/O operation is very slow. This applies to both RAID
1 configuration using 2 disks and RAID 5 using 6 disks.

Due to its crawling read/write performance, I tried to install OpenBSD 3.9
on the same machine using same configurations above. To my surprise, ciss
driver of OpenBSD 3.9 performs better on both RAID 1 and 5 --albeit, twice
the speed of I/O operations compared to NetBSD-3 branch.

Using generic kernels for both variants, simulation using time was
utilized  to compare the I/O speed difference by upacking an 8.8MB tar.gz
file from CD. It took 28:41.22 for NetBSD. On OpenBSD 3.9, the operation
was completed less than half the time clocking at 14:25.03.

Also, while unpacking the tar.gz file, I noticed that stdout pauses
invariably after 2-5 screenful of outputs. On OpenBSD's stdout, files,
while being unpacked flowed smoothly as entire operation ended.

Thoughts, comments, suggestions on this issue would be highly appreciated. :)

Dmesg output of the said machine is as follows:

NetBSD 3.0_STABLE (GENERIC) #0: Tue May  2 04:12:29 UTC 2006
        builds@b3.netbsd.org:/home/builds/ab/netbsd-3/i386/200605010000Z-obj/home/builds/ab/netbsd-3/src/sys/arch/i386/compile/GENERIC
total memory = 3071 MB
avail memory = 2996 MB
BIOS32 rev. 0 found at 0xf0000
mainbus0 (root)
cpu0 at mainbus0: (uniprocessor)
cpu0: Intel Xeon (686-class), 3056.70 MHz, id 0xf29
cpu0: features bfebf9ff<FPU,VME,DE,PSE,TSC,MSR,PAE,MCE,CX8,SEP,MTRR> cpu0:
features bfebf9ff<PGE,MCA,CMOV,PAT,PSE36,CFLUSH,DS,ACPI,MMX> cpu0:
features bfebf9ff<FXSR,SSE,SSE2,SS,HTT,TM,SBF>
cpu0: features2 4400<CID,xTPR>
cpu0: "Intel(R) Xeon(TM) CPU 3.06GHz"
cpu0: I-cache 12K uOp cache 8-way, D-cache 8 KB 64B/line 4-way
cpu0: L2 cache 512 KB 64B/line 8-way
cpu0: ITLB 4K/4M: 64 entries
cpu0: DTLB 4K/4M: 64 entries
cpu0: using thermal monitor 1
cpu0: 16 page colors
pci0 at mainbus0 bus 0: configuration mode 1
pci0: i/o space, memory space enabled, rd/line, rd/mult, wr/inv ok pchb0
at pci0 dev 0 function 0
pchb0: ServerWorks CMIC-LE PCI/AGP bridge (rev. 0x33)
pchb1 at pci0 dev 0 function 1
pchb1: ServerWorks CMIC-LE PCI/AGP bridge (rev. 0x00)
pchb2 at pci0 dev 0 function 2
pchb2: ServerWorks CMIC-LE PCI/AGP bridge (rev. 0x00)
vga1 at pci0 dev 3 function 0: ATI Technologies Rage XL (rev. 0x27)
wsdisplay0 at vga1 kbdmux 1: console (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsmux1: connecting to wsdisplay0
Compaq product 0xb203 (miscellaneous system, revision 0x01) at pci0 dev 4
function 0 not configured
Compaq product 0xb204 (miscellaneous system, revision 0x01) at pci0 dev 4
function 2 not configured
pcib0 at pci0 dev 15 function 0
pcib0: ServerWorks CSB5 southbridge (rev. 0x93)
rccide0 at pci0 dev 15 function 1
rccide0: ServerWorks CSB5 IDE Controller (rev. 0x93)
rccide0: bus-master DMA support present
rccide0: primary channel configured to compatibility mode
rccide0: primary channel interrupting at irq 14
atabus0 at rccide0 channel 0
rccide0: secondary channel configured to compatibility mode
rccide0: secondary channel interrupting at irq 15
atabus1 at rccide0 channel 1
ohci0 at pci0 dev 15 function 2: ServerWorks OSB4/CSB5 USB Host Controller
(rev. 0x05)
ohci0: interrupting at irq 5
ohci0: OHCI version 1.0, legacy support
usb0 at ohci0: USB revision 1.0
uhub0 at usb0
uhub0: ServerWorks OHCI root hub, class 9/0, rev 1.00/1.00, addr 1 uhub0:
4 ports with 4 removable, self powered
pchb3 at pci0 dev 15 function 3
pchb3: ServerWorks CSB5 ISA/LPC bridge (rev. 0x00)
pchb4 at pci0 dev 16 function 0
pchb4: ServerWorks CIOB-X2 PCI-X bridge (rev. 0x05)
pci1 at pchb4 bus 3
pci1: i/o space, memory space enabled
pchb5 at pci0 dev 16 function 2
pchb5: ServerWorks CIOB-X2 PCI-X bridge (rev. 0x05)
pci2 at pchb5 bus 6
pci2: i/o space, memory space enabled
Compaq product 0xa0f7 (system subclass 0x04, revision 0x14) at pci2 dev 30
function 0 not configured
pchb6 at pci0 dev 17 function 0
pchb6: ServerWorks CIOB-X2 PCI-X bridge (rev. 0x05)
pci3 at pchb6 bus 1
pci3: i/o space, memory space enabled
ciss0 at pci3 dev 3 function 0: Compaq Smart Array 5i
ciss0: interrupting at irq 10
ciss0: 1 LD, HW rev 1, FW 2.58/2.58
scsibus0 at ciss0: 1 target, 8 luns per target
pchb7 at pci0 dev 17 function 2
pchb7: ServerWorks CIOB-X2 PCI-X bridge (rev. 0x05)
pci4 at pchb7 bus 2
pci4: i/o space, memory space enabled
bge0 at pci4 dev 1 function 0: Broadcom BCM5703X Gigabit Ethernet
bge0: interrupting at irq 11
bge0: ASIC BCM5703 A2 (0x1002), Ethernet address 00:0f:20:6b:3f:03 brgphy0
at bge0 phy 1: BCM5703 1000BASE-T media interface, rev. 2
brgphy0: 10baseT, 10baseT-FDX, 100baseTX, 100baseTX-FDX, 1000baseT,
1000baseT-FDX, auto
bge1 at pci4 dev 2 function 0: Broadcom BCM5703X Gigabit Ethernet
intr_establish: pic pic0 pin 15: can't share type 2 with 3
bge1: couldn't establish interrupt at irq 15
isa0 at pcib0
com0 at isa0 port 0x3f8-0x3ff irq 4: ns16550a, working fifo
pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x64
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pms0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot
wsmouse0 at pms0 mux 0
pcppi0 at isa0 port 0x61
midi0 at pcppi0: PC speaker
sysbeep0 at pcppi0
isapnp0 at isa0 port 0x279: ISA Plug 'n Play device support
npx0 at isa0 port 0xf0-0xff: using exception 16
fdc0 at isa0 port 0x3f0-0x3f7 irq 6 drq 2
isapnp0: no ISA Plug 'n Play devices found
fd0 at fdc0 drive 0: 1.44MB, 80 cyl, 2 head, 18 sec
Kernelized RAIDframe activated
scsibus0: waiting 2 seconds for devices to settle...
sd0 at scsibus0 target 0 lun 0: <COMPAQ, LOGICAL VOLUME, 2.58> disk fixed
sd0: 69459 MB, 17433 cyl, 255 head, 32 sec, 512 bytes/sect x 142253280
sectors
atapibus0 at atabus0: 2 targets
cd0 at atapibus0 drive 0: <COMPAQ  CD-ROM SN-124, , N104> cdrom removable
cd0: 32-bit data port
cd0: drive supports PIO mode 4
cd0(rccide0:0:0): uion)
sing PIO mode 4
boot device: sd0
root on sd0a dumps on sd0b
root file system type: ffs
wsdisplay0: screen 1 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 2 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 3 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)
wsdisplay0: screen 4 added (80x25, vt100 emulation)