Linux vs. Solaris file IO performance

pll at lanminds.com pll at lanminds.com
Mon Oct 28 13:57:33 EST 2002


In a message dated: Mon, 28 Oct 2002 13:40:32 EST
Tom Varga said:

>    I made the comparisons on an 8-way Sun-Fire-880 with 900Mhz processors
>against my 700 Mhz IBM a20 linux laptop.  I'm fairly sure that the differences
>that I'm seeing have nothing to do with hardware.

Okay, given those specs, I agree.

> We're talking 40 seconds on the solaris box vs. 1/10 second on linux.
>
>    From my observations, the main difference is that Linux will complete the
>operation, be it rm or tar without any disk IO at all.  It seems to me that
>it's doing this to file cache without immediately flushing the changes to disk.
>The solaris box, on the other hand, immediately flushes to disk each and every
>change.  I can hear the disk kerchunking like crazy.

It sounds like the Solaris box is doing a sync() on write() whereas 
Linux probably isn't.

>    So, what I'd like to know is if the Solaris OS has a switch or
>configuration that enables it to behave like Linux WRT file IO.

I don't know.  I don't have any of my Solaris books here, and it's 
been so long since I've touched Solaris, that I've moved that section 
of knowledge out my little brain to make room for more important 
things :)
-- 

Seeya,
Paul
--
	It may look like I'm just sitting here doing nothing,
   but I'm really actively waiting for all my problems to go away.

	 If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right!





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