SAGE Disk Performance Testing

[msmith8228]

I have a large number of disks on my SageTV HD server (9 -- 250 Gig disks) and I need to complete a disk performance test to help resolve a problem I am having. All of the disks are connected using USB 2.0 external disk enclosures.

I have a disk performance testing program (PassMark Disk Test) that I want to use to measure the read and write performance of each disk -- but the program (in it's advanced testing mode) has a number of settings that I would like to change to better simulate the reading and writing that Sage uses when recording and playing back High Definition mpeg2 program stream files.

So.. can anyone help me in recommending the best test settings from the following list to best simulate SAGE?

1. Disk access method: standard Win32 API / Cached or Standard c/c++ API

2. Block size: -- is 65536 the best?

3. Sequential or random disk read / write?

4. Request mode: Synchronous or Asynchronous?

[stanger89]

Originally Posted by msmith8228

1. Disk access method: standard Win32 API / Cached or Standard c/c++ API

I'd probably go standard Win32

2. Block size: -- is 65536 the best?

It's as good as any, I'm not sure how big Sage reads/writes.

3. Sequential or random disk read / write?

Definitely Sequential

4. Request mode: Synchronous or Asynchronous?

Not sure, try both

[Mark SS]

Originally Posted by stanger89

Definitely Sequential

I disagree. If your recording several programs at once or watching something and recording others, its not going to be sequential reads/writes.

[stanger89]

Well, ideally you'd have it configured several clients/threads/users each reading/writing simultaneously, and each would be configured for sequential. IOMeter can do that.