My colleague Ian (last name withheld to save him from the Mac zealots) compiled the postmark code on his beloved Mac and ran it with the same settings I use in general (see older blog posts, just search for postmark).

I’ve been curious for the longest time to see how OSX performs in this test, since most UNIX and -alike systems work great with it. I wanted to see if OSX would be appropriate for a high IOPS-type environment (my belief being that due to the choice of kernel and filesystem it would suck - Mach and HFS+ not being exactly ideally suited to such tasks).

This is obviously not the most scientific test but I think it is good enough to get a rough gauge.

I’m still waiting for the specifics on the Mac but it’s an older Intel-based 17″ Macbok Pro with a 2.16GHz CPU, 5400 RPM HD and 2GB RAM.

The horrendous result (I think my rusty abacus did better once):

Time:
1259 seconds total
1186 seconds of transactions (16 per second)

Files:
20092 created (15 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (163 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (8 per second)
9935 read (8 per second)
10064 appended (8 per second)
20092 deleted (15 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (848 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (8 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (445.92 kilobytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (941.85 kilobytes per second)

To compare and contrast (and save you from searching the older posts):

On a similar-spec Thinkpad T60 running XP (1.8GHz Core Duo, 2GB RAM, 60GB 5400 RPM HD):

Time:
174 seconds total
91 seconds of transactions (219 per second)

Files:
20092 created (115 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (222 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (110 per second)
9935 read (109 per second)
10064 appended (110 per second)
20092 deleted (115 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (268 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (108 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (3.15 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (6.66 megabytes per second)

And on the spankin’ T61p running 2008 Server (2.6GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 200GB 7200 RPM HD):

Time:
110 seconds total
39 seconds of transactions (512 per second)

Files:
20092 created (182 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (454 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (258 per second)
9935 read (254 per second)
10064 appended (258 per second)
20092 deleted (182 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (207 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (254 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (4.98 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (10.53 megabytes per second)

The drive and CPU speed is important but postmark results are largely a function of filesystem and cache efficiency. It’s also worth noting that postmark is in no way optimized for windows since it is just standard C code and indeed was meant to be run on Unix boxes. Typically, good Unix filesystems beat Windows in postmark (my record run time was like under 10s on a Solaris box and DMX).

Unless something is wrong, HFS+ and/or the OSX cache are execrable for this kind of workload, which is a pity. Maybe there are better mount options? Some tuning options?

This is huge! Even if there’s some issue (disk fragmentation, for instance) the difference in sheer IOPS performance between OSX and pretty much anything else is staggering.

Any Mac users out there that want to chime in and save the day please let me know, I’ll send you the source and you can compile it whichever which way. I truly hope there is some serious error here.

D

I’ve been trying out ESET’s NOD32 on my 64-bit 2008 Server box. Before that I’d tried Avast! – which has great detection but noticeably slows down my computer, even when it’s loading pre-cached and pre-checked content (easy test: load Firefox with and without Avast! several times. It’s ALWAYS much slower to load with antivirus on than without. Without Avast! it loads instantly).

So I put in NOD32 Business Edition and the performance difference is staggering. Indeed, I can’t tell the difference between having it on or off. Unless you ask for a scan of the entire box the antivirus process never even goes to 1% of CPU consumption. If you check various online tests of the different antivirus programs they do show NOD32 having some of the best performance overall (including possibly the best heuristics engine with practically zero false positives), plus it works with 2008.

Other progs (Like Kaspersky) also work well but they’re much slower. I think I’ve found my holy grail when it comes to virus protection.

The one massive drawback is that Business Edition (which is the only one that supports 2008) is ONLY sold in 5-computer packs. It’s not expensive (boils down to like $40 per box, same as Home Edition) but I don’t HAVE 5 servers, I just have my 1 laptop that runs 2008.

I asked ESET and they wouldn’t sell me a single Business license. That’s just silly. The product is priced right, is totally solid but they won’t sell you a less than 5 licenses. I won’t spend 200-odd bucks for one machine.

Their response was that most businesses have more than 5 computers in general, so even if they have only 1-2 servers the rest of the licenses can be used on desktops/laptops. Which makes sense but it doesn’t help me

The only other product I’d consider now is Avira’s Antivir (same great speed and detection rate, however it provides many more false positives) but I hear it doesn’t work on 2008.

Damn the box is fast now, I forgot how blazing 2008 feels unencumbered by other fluff

D

So this is kind of a long but funny story and a rant against oversensitive people at the same time.

About a year ago, this sales guy and I go to this architecture firm since they told us they are in dire need of a better storage solution.

We meet with their admin, real nice young guy, let’s call him Mike. He explains to me how they have this old <insert few-letter-company name> clustered NAS with some JBOD behind it. They’re having performance issues, it’s not scalable, they don’t replicate it or do snaps, the list goes on about how much he hates that box. It’s just not working out.

He then mentions he wasn’t part of the decision to buy the box and he just wants to get rid of it and get something much better.

So I start explaining to him the higher-end NAS solutions, I talk about the EMC Celerra, all the things it does etc. The whole explanation takes like 2 hours since he really was unfamiliar with a lot of the basics so I started from the ground up, explained the entire concept and architecture etc.

By the end of this we’re bonding with the guy, he’s throwing some F bombs in casual conversation, all in all we’re comfortable. He tells me he finally gets it, he realizes it took him a while to see the big picture but now he totally understands the value prop. He’s excited.

I feel stoked since I like the guy and it’s not often that you get to educate someone and make them that happy. Very rewarding. So we’re joking some more and I mention how the old box is pretty much retarded when compared to the EMC box, since the EMC box does so much more it’s ridiculous.

He laughs about that and agrees, we joke some more, I promise him I’ll send him a config to look over and we leave.

On the way out he tells me how great it all was, and cautions me jokingly that it’s probably not a good idea to mention to more conservative customers that their existing storage is retarded. We laugh and part ways in a very friendly fashion. Of course I don’t normally say something like that, I only did because we were joking around and bonding and, most importantly, he told me it wasn’t his baby and that he hates it. Usually the coast is clear after something like that

So I send him his config, he’s getting a great deal, all very well architected. No response. I call him, no response. Eventually the rep calls him, and Mike tells the rep how he was offended that I called his storage retarded and he doesn’t want to do business with us. I thought this was the weirdest thing ever. My initial reaction is that maybe someone close to him is mentally retarded – but if that were the case, he should have shown some kind of reaction when I first mentioned the dim-wittedness of his existing storage.

But wait, there’s more.

About a year later… different gig, different rep. I get the invite to go to this place and talk about storage. They’ve had problems for years and have a really old and bad system in place and really need a replacement. I walk in, and of course it’s the same exact architecture firm! I tell the rep that this is probably a bad idea and that I should leave. I don’t have time though because Mike comes to greet us.

The moment he sees me, he’s like “sorry guys, this is not gonna happen, you just leave now so we don’t waste each other’s time”. He says that he really respects my expertise but he won’t do business with a company I work at. He doesn’t want to speak to another engineer and pretty much kicks us out. I can’t shut up any more and I tell Mike that he has really, really thin skin.

Needless to say the new sales guy is dumbfounded.

The sales guy calls Mike a day or so later and gets an explanation out of him. Mike claims he doesn’t want to deal with engineers that belittle his equipment since how do I know in what financial dire straits they were? Maybe they were forced to buy the retarded storage.

Which is fine but shows that either Mike lied throughout our entire first meeting or has an amazingly bad short-term memory.

I wish Mike all the best in his future endeavors and still stand by my original assertion: get off your retarded storage if it’s causing you problems. Even if you don’t have money there are other appliance-type solutions to be had on the cheap (or free)!

Here are some easy-to-use appliances that are quite good:

• Nexentastor
• Openfiler
• Open-E
• FreeNAS

You could try all of them as virtual machines if you don’t want to dedicate hardware to them to begin with. That way you can test all of them easily. You can also roll your own with Solaris 10 or Linux, of course it requires one to know what they’re doing but it’s amazing what can be accomplished for next to zero dollars nowadays.

And Mike, if you ever read this:

Get some thicker skin. And maybe some Gingko Biloba. Moreover, if the real reason I offended you was that someone close to you is retarded – get over it, it’s just an expression!

People are just too damn sensitive these days. Just get the job done.

D