Technical Report

FAS/V6200 Platform Performance Comparison

Chris Lueth, NetApp March 2011 | TR-3908

OVERVIEW
This report covers the performance quick reference (PQR) results of the new FAS/V6200 high-end platform series. Platform PQR results provide you with peak performance throughput for a single workload over the four standard protocols if no artificial bottleneck, such as too few disks or network connections, was encountered before the controller processing cores were fully utilized. Although these types of performance results can help you better understand relative performance differences between platforms, they aren't recommended as a substitute for thorough application sizing, including using the NetApp Application Sizing Tools.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1 2

INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................. 3 PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT METHODOLOGY ..................................................................... 3

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 2.8 WORKLOAD TYPES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS ........................................................................................... 4 STORAGE SYSTEM CONFIGURATION .................................................................................................................... 4 STORAGE SUBSYSTEM WITH LARGE SEQUENTIAL WORKLOADS ................................................................... 4 LARGE SEQUENTIAL READS ................................................................................................................................... 4 LARGE SEQUENTIAL WRITES .................................................................................................................................. 5 STORAGE SUBSYSTEM WITH SMALL RANDOM WORKLOADS ........................................................................... 6 SMALL RANDOM READS .......................................................................................................................................... 6 SMALL RANDOM WRITES ......................................................................................................................................... 7

PERFORMANCE TAKEAWAYS ........................................................................................................ 8

3.1 FAS/V6200 SMALL RANDOM WRITE PERFORMANCE TAKEAWAYS ................................................................. 8

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1) FAS/V6200 large sequential read performance...........................................................................5 Figure 2) FAS/V6200 large sequential write performance..........................................................................6 Figure 3) FAS/V6200 small random read performance..............................................................................7 Figure 4) FAS/V6200 small random write performance..............................................................................8

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INTRODUCTION

The FAS/V6200 series provides key performance and functionality improvements in the NetApp high-end family. The primary performance improvements are higher throughput processing cores (and more total cores in the FAS/V6280), faster and increased memory, PCIe Gen2 architecture, high-speed embedded interfaces, and increased slots. Key innovations include onboard stateless offload 10GbE ports, HA configurations in 6U and 12U footprints, a persistent write log, and an I/O expansion module (IOXM) that increases slot density by 140%. Key features in the FAS/V6200 series include: Performance improvements across all workloads: The FAS/V6280 provides 70% to 260% better maximum throughput performance compared to the FAS/V6080 The FAS/V6240 provides 125% to 530% better maximum throughput performance compared to the FAS/V6040 The FAS/V6210 provides 230% to 300% better maximum throughput performance compared to the FAS3170 Hardware improvements: HA configuration in single chassis (6U high) or dual chassis (12U high) Single-chassis options include: One FAS6210 controller in standalone configuration Two FAS6210 controllers in an HA configuration A FAS6240 or FAS6280 controller and an IOXM in standalone configuration Dual-chassis options include: A FAS6210 HA configuration with one controller per chassis FAS6240 HA or FAS6280 HA with a controller and an IOXM in each chassis Embedded 10GbE ports with stateless offload 8Gb FC ports configurable as target or initiator Service Processor (SP) adds features to increase reliability, availability, serviceability, and manageability (RASM) NVRAM with persistent write log to maintain write log for extended outages potentially caused by natural disasters Note: When tailoring solutions for customers, you should always conduct thorough sizing research and performance scoping by using the NetApp Application Sizing Tools.

PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT METHODOLOGY

Performance quick reference (PQR) comparison information is based on measurements of single, noncached workloads. Workload performance is measured across NFS, CIFS, FCP, and iSCSI protocols. In all cases, testing is performed under ideal conditions that do not mimic typical conditions in the field. This type of performance testing is used primarily to identify maximum throughputs of a single, noncached workload on a particular protocol under ideal conditions. However, standard field deployments differ considerably from the test environment. In the field, NetApp storage systems handle combinations of workloads and protocols. Because of the differences between test conditions and those in the field, we recommend that you consider the performance results as a useful frame of reference to assist with initial sizing. The results would probably not be duplicated with typical real-world workloads.

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2.1

WORKLOAD TYPES AND THEIR CHARACTERISTICS

At a high level, an I/O workload that occurs on a disk subsystem is classified as either large sequential or small random. The difference between these types of workloads lies in the number of disk operations that must be performed to read or write an amount of data. Generally, the number of disk operations for a small random workload tends to be higher than for a large sequential workload. The block size involved in the data transfer determines whether a workload is large sequential or small random. With a large sequential I/O workload, the disks read/write head stays in locations longer, processing contiguous blocks of data with fewer disk operations. With a small random I/O workload, the disks read/write head must reposition itself continually in search of much smaller noncontiguous data blocks. This repositioning results in more disk operations. With fewer disk operations to process the same amount of data, large sequential I/O often gives better storage performance than small random I/O. In production environments, storage I/O patterns vary depending on the nature of the applications that are generating the I/O requests. For example, applications that perform computational analysis of seismic data usually operate on very large files. This type of workload is categorized as a large sequential I/O workload. Database and mail servers with their 8KB reads and writes, or file-sharing servers that generate I/O requests to many small files that are not located in contiguous blocks on disk, are categorized as small random I/O workloads.

2.2

STORAGE SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

All performance measurements were performed with HA-configured controllers running Data ONTAP 8.0.1 in 7-Mode. In this performance comparison, both of the storage controllers are actively servicing the workload at maximum performance levels. The storage was provisioned by using FlexVol volumes on 15K Fibre Channel (FC) disks. The RAID group type for all testing was RAID-DP. The number of disks used for performance testing varied by measurement and platform, and enough disks and storage loops were used in each case so that back-end storage would not bottleneck performance results.

2.3

STORAGE SUBSYSTEM WITH LARGE SEQUENTIAL WORKLOADS

In many cases, performance measurements of large sequential I/O on FC and SATA disks can be very similar. Large sequential workloads don't fully expose the differences between the two disk technologies. While SATA disks have slower rotational speed and seek times compared to SAS or FC disk drives, with large sequential workloads the read/write heads stay in the same general area, processing contiguous blocks of data. These effects negate the slower SATA rotational speed and seek times compared to SAS or FC and provide comparable performance between the two. For applications generating a primarily large sequential workload on the storage subsystem, the results described in this section can provide a useful baseline for SAS, FC, and SATA disk drives.

2.4

LARGE SEQUENTIAL READS

FAS/V6200 series storage systems make significant gains over previous models' large sequential read performance. Here are the highlights for large sequential read performance under this workload: The FAS6280 averages over 210% faster large sequential read performance than the FAS6080 CIFS was almost 300% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 NFS and iSCSI were both roughly 270% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 The FAS6210 averages over 200% faster large sequential read performance than the FAS3170 NFS was almost 270% faster on the FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170

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 CIFS and iSCSI performed roughly 250% better on FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170 The following figure shows the results of the FAS/V6200 large sequential read performance measurements:
Figure 1) FAS/V6200 large sequential read performance.

2.5

LARGE SEQUENTIAL WRITES

FAS/V6200 series storage systems make significant gains over previous models' large sequential write performance. Here are the highlights for large sequential write performance under this workload: The FAS6280 averages over 110% faster large sequential write performance than the FAS6080 FCP was almost 120% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 NFS and iSCSI were both roughly 100% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 The FAS6210 averages over 75% faster large sequential write performance than the FAS3170 Using iSCSI, the FAS6210 was 90% faster compared to the FAS3170 NFS and CIFS performed over 70% better on FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170 The following figure shows the results of the FAS/V6200 large sequential write performance measurements:

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Figure 2) FAS/V6200 large sequential write performance.

2.6

STORAGE SUBSYSTEM WITH SMALL RANDOM WORKLOADS

Small random read workload performance on SATA disks can be much different compared to FC and SAS disks. In general, the slower performance of SATA disks tends to affect small random write workloads less than small random read workloads because NetApp WAFL (Write Anywhere File Layout) intelligence processes write operations very efficiently. However, with small random reads, the slower SATA rotational speed and seek time result in a very large performance difference compared to FC and SAS disk drives. When sizing for small random I/O workloads, remember that most tend to be read intensive and that read percentage is typically about 60% to 70% of all I/O generated on the storage subsystem.

2.7

SMALL RANDOM READS

FAS/V6200 series storage systems make significant gains over previous models' small random read performance. Here are the highlights for small random read performance under this workload: The FAS6280 averages almost 90% faster small random read performance than the FAS6080 CIFs was 105% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 Other protocols were roughly 80% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 The FAS6210 averages almost 60% faster small random read performance than the FAS3170 NFS was over 70% faster on FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170

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 Other protocols performed roughly 50% better on FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170 The following figure shows the results of the FAS/V6200 small random read performance measurements:
Figure 3) FAS/V6200 small random read performance.

To obtain the small random read performance described above, the number of FC data disks was increased to the point at which the CPU became the I/O bottleneck. At that point, the disks could have provided more input/output performance (IOPs) if the system controller could have requested it. However, with small random reads on SATA disks, the disks themselves become the I/O bottleneck long before the CPU does. This is true because SATA disks provide fewer random read IOPs than FC disks. This is also true because SATA disks have higher latencies, or response time, than SAS or FC disks. In general, when a sizing effort for a customer reveals a workload with a high number of IOPs or a low latency response requirement, SATA storage is not the solution to offer. For information about sizing small random read workloads on SATA disks, see the Storage Subsystem Configuration Guide (TR-3838).

2.8

SMALL RANDOM WRITES

FAS/V6200 series storage systems make significant gains over previous models' small random write performance. Here are the highlights for small random write performance under this workload: The FAS6280 averages almost 30% faster small random write performance than the FAS6080 CIFS and iSCSI were almost 30% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 FCP was almost 30% faster on the FAS6280 compared to the FAS6080 The FAS6210 averages over 35% faster small random write performance than the FAS3170

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 Using iSCSI, the FAS6210 was 50% faster compared to the FAS3170 FCP was almost 30% better on FAS6210 compared to the FAS3170 The following figure shows the results of the FAS/V6200 small random write performance measurements:
Figure 4) FAS/V6200 small random write performance.

PERFORMANCE TAKEAWAYS

The new FAS/V6200 high-end models offer significant performance improvements over the previous FAS/V6000 high-end family. FAS/V6280 performance will increase for certain workloads when memory utilization is increased to take advantage of all physical memory. This increase, which is targeted to Data ONTAP 8.0.2, should benefit NAS file system deployments similar to the SFS2008 NFS and CIFS benchmarks. In Data ONTAP 8.1.1 (and later releases), the FAS/V6280 also will benefit from multithreading improvements to take advantage of the 24 cores available in an HA pair. Write performance should also increase as of Data ONTAP 8.1.1, when the amount of NVRAM recognized by Data ONTAP will increase from the currently recognized 2GB.

3.1

FAS/V6200 SMALL RANDOM WRITE PERFORMANCE TAKEAWAYS

Compared to results for the other three workloads described in this report, the results for small random write showed a smaller performance increase on the FAS/V6200 storage systems. The smaller percentage performance increase is due to the following:

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FAS/V6200 results with Data ONTAP 8.0.1 use large aggregates, which can cause up to 10% lower performance for small random write workloads compared to small aggregates The FAS/V3170 and FAS/V6080 performance results with Data ONTAP 8.0 used small aggregates Small random writes are already handled extremely well by NetApp storage systems, so it is harder to make significant improvements with this workload Write performance may also benefit in future Data ONTAP releases when the amount of NVRAM utilized by Data ONTAP might increase from the currently recognized 2GB

Finally, remember to consult the NetApp Application Sizing Tools for thorough coverage whenever you're doing application sizing for customers.

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