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Good afternoon,
This is my first post to the list, so please pardon any "newbie" faux 
pas I may commit.
I have the following DEC Alpha Cluster configuration that seems to be 
experiencing I/O problems with the Raid Array.  At least, that's 
where I think the problem is - I can't seem to find any solid 
evidence pointing anywhere in terms of error logs or alerts.  Maybe 
someone out there can help!
The systems were running normally (I say that based only upon 
"experience", not emperical evidence) until Monday of this week.  
Starting Monday, writes to the array are a factor of 10 slower.  I 
can't find any errors and the cabinet is happily humming along.
A matched pair of CPU's:
- ------------------------
Digital UNIX V4.0D (Rev. 878); Mon Mar 23 16:40:56 EST 1998 
Digital UNIX TruCluster V1.5 (Rev. 270); 12/30/97 20:36 
Digital UNIX V4.0D Worksystem Software (Rev. 875) 
System Type: DEC1000A_5 
Number of CPUs: 1 Type: EV56 Speed: 333 Mhz Cache: 2.0 MB Memory 
size: 1024 MB 
Raid Array 450 w/HSZ-50 (32MB Cache) filled with RZ28D-VW 2.1GB disks
KZPDA-AA "FWSE SCSI Card" in each system
Memory Channel Interface between CPU's
Systems are used for Oracle 7.3.4 Parallel Server, database on RAW 
devices
Picture:
- -------       -------       -------
|CPU A|       |CPU B|       |RAID |
|     |-MemCh-|     |       |ARRAY|
|     |       |     |       | 450 |
|     |       |     |       |     |
|KZPDA|-SCSI--|KZPDA|-SCSI--|HSZ50|
- -------       -------       -------
KZPDA's are connected to each other, then to the Array (differential 
SCSI).
Array has 4 RAID5 Raidsets defined, using disks as:
HSZ> show raidset
Name          Storageset                     Uses             Used by
- ----------------------------------------------------------------------
- --------
 
RAID1         raidset                        DISK410          D3
                                             DISK510
                                             DISK610
 
RAID2         raidset                        DISK110          D5
                                             DISK210
                                             DISK310
 
RAID3         raidset                        DISK100          D6
                                             DISK200
                                             DISK300
 
RAID4         raidset                        DISK420          D4
                                             DISK520
                                             DISK620
Question:
When I compare write time for a 16mb file to the local system disk in 
the CPU cabinet to a filesystem on the array, I would expect it to be 
a little slower due to the shared SCSI bus.  But look at these times:
System Disk:
- ------------
#time dd if=/dev/zero of=foobar bs=16k count=1024           
 
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
 
real   0.8
user   0.0
sys    0.7
Raid Aray:
- ----------
#time dd if=/dev/zero of=foobar bs=16k count=1024            
 
1024+0 records in
1024+0 records out
 
real   46.4
user   0.1
sys    0.6
.8 seconds compared to 46.4?!  That can't be correct.
Can someone with a similar configuration run this and see if it's 
"normal"?
Anyone have any ideas?  There have been no O/S related changes.  
Minor database changes have been reversed.  In fact, we've recovered 
the system back 1 week (before performance degradation) with minimal 
improvement.
Thanks.
Pete
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Received on Fri Dec 04 1998 - 21:53:57 NZDT