Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine

From	Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk>
Newsgroups	comp.os.linux.hardware
Subject	Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine
Date	2016-12-07 22:41 +0000
Message-ID	<earhh4F8si0U1@mid.individual.net> (permalink)

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I'm wondering if there are any cheap / easy speed ups for an IO bound
machine?

  ASUS M4A78 Pro motherboard
  Phenom II x6 1090T processor (fastest or second fastest that will
  go in this mobo)
  8GB RAM

  480GB SSD for system files, btrfs, single.
  2x 3TB WD red HDD as btrfs RAID1 for data.
  Also barely used DVD burner.

  I use the on-board graphics.

Slackware 14.1 (in process of 14.2 upgrade) with 4.8.5 kernel.

Using atop etc it seems that the machine is IO bound.  Also notice that
if apache / php / mariadb, which are running on the same machine, are
churning away and unresponsive I can browse the internet still with
little impact which makes me think it is a local IO thing.

I'm wondering if there are any cheap and simple improvements?    I'm
wondering if moving mariadb data and apache data to a spare SSD I have
lying around would help at the expense of a slightly more complex
configuration and loss of some of btrfs's benefits?  I did put the
mariadb data on my system SSD for a while previously but did not notice
a significant change in responsiveness.  So this might be a waste of time.

Another thing I am wondering is that all the IO goes through the mobo
SATA controller is that controller a bottleneck?  Would adding a PCIe
SATA controller in addition to the mobo one so I could split the drives
across the two controllers make a difference or am I likely to be simply
wasting time and money?

The alternative consideration, at the cost of time, complexity and money
is using two additional SSDs with bcache for the RD Reds.

I'm not intending to splurge out on a new machine and can live which
what I have now.  However, if there are any simple and inexpensive
improvements it would be good to know.

I have tried switching IO schedulers in the kernel and a few other
tweaks with no obvious difference notice.  However, that could be due to
a lack of knowledge on tuning IO.

Any thoughts?


Pete

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Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-07 22:41 +0000
  Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2016-12-08 16:44 +0000
    Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-10 11:24 +0000
      Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Roger Blake <rogblake@iname.invalid> - 2016-12-11 01:34 +0000
        Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-11 22:07 +0000
  Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> - 2016-12-10 12:43 +0100
    Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-10 20:44 +0000
      Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> - 2016-12-10 23:05 +0100
        Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-11 11:54 +0000
          Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> - 2016-12-11 14:10 +0100
            Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-11 22:46 +0000
              Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Piergiorgio Sartor <piergiorgio.sartor.this.should.not.be.used@nexgo.REMOVETHIS.de> - 2016-12-12 19:22 +0100
            Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-13 10:17 +0100
              Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-14 20:03 +0000
                Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-15 12:55 +0100
                Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-15 23:18 +0000
                Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-16 09:34 +0100
        Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-13 09:57 +0100
  Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-12 09:11 +0100
    Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-12 23:08 +0000
      Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-13 09:29 +0100
        Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-14 23:16 +0000
          Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-15 13:15 +0100
            Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine Peter Chant <pete@petezilla.co.uk> - 2016-12-15 22:50 +0000
              Re: Speed ups for a disk IO bound machine David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2016-12-16 09:39 +0100

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