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Date: Tue, 7 Oct 2008 20:09:46 -0700
From: Andrew Sharp <andy.sharp@onstor.com>
To: "Patrick Haverty" <patrick.haverty@onstor.com>
Subject: Re: how many cores does the leopard line really need?
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I've definitely got some ideas, but in the end the most important thing
is probably spec benchmarks or similar.  I agree that bonnie is good
for comparing several different variations of configs on a leopard, but
probably not the ultimate arbiter for whether or not a particular setup
is meeting our performance goals, which I believe the Marketing
[asswipes] have already set out.  Let's discuss on Thursday ... if
you're going to be down here for the all hands.  Hmm, on second
thought, you'll probably dial in.  Oh well, tomorrow by phone then.

Cheers,

a

On Tue, 7 Oct 2008 18:03:44 -0700 "Patrick Haverty"
<patrick.haverty@onstor.com> wrote:

> Hey Andy,
> 
> By "something a Windoze user can run" I didn't necessarily mean
> something that has to run on Windows, but something simple enough to
> use that I might be able to set up on either a Linux client or the
> Leopard box itself.  Any guidance would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Pat
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick Haverty 
> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 2:53 PM
> To: Andy Sharp; dl-leopard
> Subject: RE: how many cores does the leopard line really need?
> 
> I'm shocked.  Isn't faster always better?
> 
> Is there a simple (i.e. something a Windoze user can run (I can run))
> benchmark that will tell us where we stand with the system we have
> today?  Are there some Bonnie benchmarks, or Iometer benchmarks, from
> Bobcat or Cougar systems that we can compare to the results I've got
> from the Leopard?  I've ran some Iometer tests on the Leopard and a
> VSVR on a Bobcat, but I'm not clear on the configuration of the
> storage behind the Bobcat to know if it is a fair compare.  It would
> be nice know to where the current system stands in relationship to the
> performance targets.
> 
> Brian S. can comment more on this, but I think the pricing for the
> Opteron 2350 (2.0GHz quad core) is a little over $200.  How much lower
> could we expect for CPUs?  Are they possibly under $100?
> 
> Andy, do you know of any test I might try that could clue us to the
> multithreaded-ness of ZFS?  ZFS seems very happy to spread the load
> when I run multiple processes in the Bonnie benchmark, but I'm not
> exactly sure if that proves the point.
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Pat
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Andy Sharp
> Sent: Tuesday, October 07, 2008 2:22 PM
> To: dl-leopard
> Subject: how many cores does the leopard line really need?
> 
> So here's some thinking, don't be shocked.
> 
> So far as I understand, we have been looking only at 8-core systems
> for leopard.  The question is, how many do we really need?  A 4-core
> seemingly should be quite capable of doing what we need.  I'd
> certainly be surprised if a 1.8GHz 8-core didn't easily handle the
> performance tarkets we are aiming for with the first and second
> releases of this product line.
> 
> I think we should do some tests in this area so that we can determine
> which would be the best approach, COGS wise, ala high speed 4-core v.
> lower speed 8-core or do we really need a medium to high speed 8-core?
> A lower speed 8-core might turn out to be the most cost effective,
> depending on the multithreaded-ness ZFS.
> 
> Comments?
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> a
