35 replies to this topic

[]SK[]

There's been issues in the past where thin discs show a performance hit. Are your XP discs thin?

[Lee Barratt]

the XP and WHS vm are both thick provisioned

Also, if i transfer a file from a physical XP machine to WHS vw across a 1gb network, i get 23MB/s

[+BudMan]

thats still pretty crappy for a gig network. If I do a iperf or file copy to a physical machine from the vm I get this

C:\test>robocopy \\storage\media\cleanup c:\test test.mp4

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY	 ::	 Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Thu Jan 03 10:31:22 2013

   Source = \\storage\media\cleanup\
	 Dest : c:\test\

	Files : test.mp4

  Options : /COPY:DAT /R:1000000 /W:30

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

						   1	\\storage\media\cleanup\
100%		New File			 650.8 m		test.mp4

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

			   Total	Copied   Skipped  Mismatch	FAILED	Extras
	Dirs :		 1		 0		 1		 0		 0		 0
   Files :		 1		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Bytes :  650.86 m  650.86 m		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Times :   0:00:09   0:00:09					   0:00:00   0:00:00


   Speed :			74150984 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :			4242.953 MegaBytes/min.

   Ended : Thu Jan 03 10:31:31 2013

C:\test>iperf -c storage -w 256k
------------------------------------------------------------
Client connecting to storage, TCP port 5001
TCP window size:  256 KByte
------------------------------------------------------------
[336] local 192.168.1.100 port 16077 connected with 192.168.1.8 port 5001
[ ID] Interval	   Transfer	 Bandwidth
[336]  0.0-10.0 sec  1012 MBytes   849 Mbits/sec

Notice the 800+ Mbits per second over gig.. And in the 70MBps for file pull from my VM.

Do an iperf test from your physical to your VM, using a higher window size, say -w 256k You can see example of this test in my above output. On the server set it up with iperf -s -w 256k

[Lee Barratt]

Ive set up the physical XP machine as server, with

WHS vm as a client i get transfer 353Mb, bandwidth 295MBit/sec

XP vm as a client i get transfer 11.1Mb, bandwidth 8.59MBit/sec

[ChuckFinley]

]SK[, on 03 January 2013 - 16:14, said:

There's been issues in the past where thin discs show a performance hit. Are your XP discs thin?

Damn you beat me too it! I was going to say that. How are they formatted?

[+BudMan]

Do you have 2 physical boxes we can play with - 295Mbps is that your iperf test.. That is pretty crappy for a gig network. Did you use the larger window size for your test?

at 8.59 mbps -- is that over wireless or something? Are you reading writing from a USB disk or something.. That is just horrific performance.

[Lee Barratt]

ChuckFinley, on 03 January 2013 - 17:07, said:

Damn you beat me too it! I was going to say that. How are they formatted?

I added the drives under the vclient and formatted them via windows - is that right? am a novice with ESXi

BudMan, on 03 January 2013 - 17:09, said:

Do you have 2 physical boxes we can play with - 295Mbps is that your iperf test.. That is pretty crappy for a gig network. Did you use the larger window size for your test?

at 8.59 mbps -- is that over wireless or something? Are you reading writing from a USB disk or something.. That is just horrific performance.

yes, those figures are are with iperf on a wired Gb network

I've just performed another iperf test

physcial XP machine set as server (1Gb network) - wired

physical win7 laptop set as client (100Mb network) - wired

and i get 87Mbits/sec

the laptop has only got a 100Mb network card, so thats the max on this network - this is for this test only.

Edited by Lee Barratt, 03 January 2013 - 17:37.

[+BudMan]

Well 87mbps on 100mbit connection is about right.. Best you could see on 100mbit is around mid 90's -- think best I have ever seen is 97 something. Never ever going to see actual speed of the connection.

But on gig you should be seeing closer to 800s vs your under 300 number.

So question for you on your VM whs - did you give whs raw access to the disks, or did you create vmfs on the disks that the OS has access to.

So for example on my storage box



Notice that the 3 disks I have given it to use in a drive pool the disks are raw mapped, and then above that you see the virtual disk (on the datastore drive) that is the vmfs for the OS installed too.

Here is a guide on how to do that
http://vm-help.com/e...i/SATA_RDMs.php

So for example here is my maps

/vmfs/volumes/4f677e4a-81443006-5233-2c768aadf656/RDMs # ls -la
drwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1120 Dec 26 13:12 .
drwxr-xr-t 1 root root 5180 Dec 29 14:59 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 2000398934016 Apr 7 2012 rdm1-rdmp.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 521 Dec 26 13:12 rdm1.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 750156374016 Apr 16 2012 rdm2-rdmp.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 520 Dec 26 13:12 rdm2.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 750156374016 Apr 14 2012 rdm3-rdmp.vmdk
-rw------- 1 root root 520 Dec 26 13:12 rdm3.vmdk
/vmfs/volumes/4f677e4a-81443006-5233-2c768aadf656/RDMs #

So couple of things to deal with on your slow performance - why your iperf between vms is so slow. And then make sure that your drive access is as fast as it can be. How are attaching the disks to your VMs could be a limiting factor - and have to look into the speed between vms from a network as well. I do recall seeing above 1Gbps before on iperf between machines

yeah just looked up a old thread about N40L performance - and in a test there I was seeing 1.5Gbps between vms - have to take a look why only seeing 500mbps now
http://www.neowin.ne...t__p__594826393



So I got something not quite right as well - wonder what would of changed?? I know the client is different in this test. Have to look to getting my between vms speeds back to that over 1Gbps

[Lee Barratt]

My drive pool is setup as a virtual drive. Not Raw mapped. I guess that i cant convert these to raw mapped and will have to take the data off before I can raw map them.

Thanks, will give that a go and get back to you

[]SK[]

This is a copy from A Win7 VM to my physical Desktop over a 1GB switch. The discs are thin provisioned.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY	 ::	 Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Started : 04 January 2013 09:16:13
   Source : VM7COMPUTER
	 Dest : C:\Users\Andrew\Desktop\
	Files : SOME.FILE
  Options : /DCOPY:DA /COPY:DAT /R:1000000 /W:30
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
						   1	VM7COMPUTER

100%		New File			 701.8 m		SOME.FILE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			   Total	Copied   Skipped  Mismatch	FAILED	Extras
	Dirs :		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Files :		 1		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Bytes :  701.88 m  701.88 m		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Times :   0:00:06   0:00:06					   0:00:00   0:00:00

   Speed :		   108010209 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :			6180.393 MegaBytes/min.
   Ended : 04 January 2013 09:16:20

This is copying from a Win XP machine to my physical desktop over the same switch with the VM in the same datastore. Basically, there is nothing different from the above other than its a VM with XP rather than 7.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY	 ::	 Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Started : 04 January 2013 10:10:43
   Source : VMXPCOMPUTER
	 Dest : C:\Users\Andrew\Desktop\
	Files : SOME.FILE
  Options : /DCOPY:DA /COPY:DAT /R:1000000 /W:30
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
						   1	VMXPCOMPUTER
100%		New File			 851.2 m		SOME.FILE
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
			   Total	Copied   Skipped  Mismatch	FAILED	Extras
	Dirs :		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Files :		 1		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Bytes :  851.20 m  851.20 m		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Times :   0:00:13   0:00:13					   0:00:00   0:00:00

   Speed :			65230532 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :			3732.521 MegaBytes/min.
   Ended : 04 January 2013 10:10:57

XP seems to be much slower than its predecessor. I know they are slightly different file sizes but the speed speaks for itself.
TBH as I run with such a small amount of resources I would sooner use XP over 7 yet XP feels much slower than 7 does as a VM on my MicroServer. Windows 2008 R2 feels much snappier than XP does. I need to ditch my XP machine really as these tests above prove 7 is not performing how it should.

The host is a HP MicroServer (N36L so the mk1 version).

[n_K]

Humm strange for XP to be doing that oddly, maybe faulty ESXi vmxnet3 drivers?
Got a server 2003 SP2 here (not on a N40L but a HP proliant) and it runs full speed if I push files to it or pull files from it using windows and linux clients.

[+BudMan]

"108010209 Bytes/sec."

Really? What are the disks involved here? That is some SCREAMING performance!! Are they SSD? Or do you have a different controller added or just the native controller?

So what is your VM to VM peformance?

Well maybe not all that screaming, depending I guess -- just did a test from my storage vm to my physical machine.. And seeing real close to what you got

C:\test>robocopy \\storage\media\cleanup c:\test test.mp4

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   ROBOCOPY	 ::	 Robust File Copy for Windows
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  Started : Fri Jan 04 20:53:30 2013

   Source = \\storage\media\cleanup\
	 Dest : c:\test\

	Files : test.mp4

  Options : /COPY:DAT /R:1000000 /W:30

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

						   1	\\storage\media\cleanup\
100%		New File			 650.8 m		test.mp4

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

			   Total	Copied   Skipped  Mismatch	FAILED	Extras
	Dirs :		 1		 0		 1		 0		 0		 0
   Files :		 1		 1		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Bytes :  650.86 m  650.86 m		 0		 0		 0		 0
   Times :   0:00:06   0:00:06					   0:00:00   0:00:00


   Speed :		   105094805 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :			6013.572 MegaBytes/min.

   Ended : Fri Jan 04 20:53:37 2013

And didn't realize it until I made a change about offload in the nic driver on my storage vm for testing that my son was streaming a moving at the time of that test

Nothing but amazed at the performance you get get out of such a cheap little box... The OP clearly has something really jacked up.

[Lee Barratt]

something really is screwed up with mine.

I performed another iperf test between 2 XP VMs last night and was getting around 400MBits/s

I am tempted to do a reinstallation of ESXi and the VMs and see if there was anywhere i went wrong.

I am currently booting ESXi from a USB drive and storing the VMs on the 250GB drive which came with the N40L. Am wondering if other guys have a similar setup with these boxes?

[Lee Barratt]

I've just installed 2 new VMs - XP - and performed an iperf test, I now get 800Mbits/sec............a step in the right direction, just need to reinstall a WHS VM and do a same test,

[ChuckFinley]

To RAW Map them you need Dedicated Storage for that Disk IN the virtual machine. Can you do that. You shouldn't need to with your set up. Sorry I meant how are they formatted as in Thin Provisioned or Thick Provisioned etc.