ZFS Performance Testing: AMD Dual Core w/ 6GB DDR2 & 5x2TB SATA in raidz

In my previous post on ZFS performance testing I ran through various tests on a particular test system that I had running at the time. This time round, I have a MSI motherboard with an AMD dual core CPU, 6GB of DDR2, and 5x2TB drives. With this build we went with the HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000 HDS723020BLA642 drive which is currently available on NewEgg for $119.99 plus shipping. These drives have been strong performers and are slowly making me forget the “DeathStar” era, but only time will tell… These are in fact SATA III drives but the onboard controller that we tested through only supports SATA II. So here we go….

Test rig:

  • Custom Build
  • AMD Athlon Phenom II Dual Core
  • 6GB DDR2 RAM
  • Onboard SATA II
  • 5x2TB SATA II 7200 RPM – Five (5) independent drives with no RAID. Model: HITACHI Deskstar 7K3000
  • FreeNAS 0.7.2 Sabanda (revision 5543)-ZFS v13

GNU dd:
Tests performed from the CLI using good ole’ GNU dd. The following command was used to first write, and then read back:

dd if=/dev/zero of=foo bs=2M count=10000 ; dd if=foo of=/dev/null bs=2M

Results:
Results are listed as configuration, write, then read.

  • ZFS raidz pool utilizing five (5) SATA disks
    • 232 MB/s
    • 336 MB/s

  • ZFS raidz pool utilizing five (5) SATA disks with dataset compression set to “On”
    • 455 MB/s
    • 582 MB/s

    Notes, Thoughts & Mentionables:
    There are a few things worth mentioning about this system:
    Due to time restrictions, I was only able to test on the raidz vdev type. I look forward to testing again with varying vdev types/configs if and when possible.

    –himuraken

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