Data Transfer Performance

Data collected on a QNX 4 system (600 MHz P3) is copied to a WinXP based
system (1.0 GHz Laptop )for post-processing. Currently the copy happens
across a 100 Mbit LAN connection using nfs (MS Services for UNIX). The copy
uses a PERL script with several "cp -Rcvn " in it. The data being copied
consists of a mix of binary files sized from 200MB down to several KB.

Several tests have been performed to determine the effective data transfer
rate of a number of different transfer methods using a fixed set of 36 files
totaling 605MB (5 files account for 550MB, the remainder are small):
QNX 4 to Laptop via 100 Mb LAN/nfs - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.0 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 1.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
0.5 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.6 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB Flash Memory Stick - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.4
MB/s

By way of comparison, copying the 605MB data from Windows to Windows
produced transfer rates of:
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to W2k Network Server - Effective
Transfer Rate = 4.0 MB/s
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to 366 MHz W2k Desktop - Effective Transfer
Rate = 6.4 MB/s

The -O option for cp has been tried and produced no improvement in copy
times. The USB SmartDisk is capable of max sustained transfer rates of
15MB/s. A 100 Mb LAN should be capable of at least 10 MB/s.

What can be done from the QNX 4 end to improve the data transfer
performance?

What disk driver (Fsys.xxx) are you using in QNX4?

PK

“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message
news:e61mfm$adl$1@inn.qnx.com

Data collected on a QNX 4 system (600 MHz P3) is copied to a WinXP based
system (1.0 GHz Laptop )for post-processing. Currently the copy happens
across a 100 Mbit LAN connection using nfs (MS Services for UNIX). The
copy uses a PERL script with several "cp -Rcvn " in it. The data being
copied consists of a mix of binary files sized from 200MB down to several
KB.

Several tests have been performed to determine the effective data transfer
rate of a number of different transfer methods using a fixed set of 36
files totaling 605MB (5 files account for 550MB, the remainder are small):
QNX 4 to Laptop via 100 Mb LAN/nfs - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.0 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 1.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
0.5 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.6 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB Flash Memory Stick - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.4
MB/s

By way of comparison, copying the 605MB data from Windows to Windows
produced transfer rates of:
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to W2k Network Server - Effective
Transfer Rate = 4.0 MB/s
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to 366 MHz W2k Desktop - Effective Transfer
Rate = 6.4 MB/s

The -O option for cp has been tried and produced no improvement in copy
times. The USB SmartDisk is capable of max sustained transfer rates of
15MB/s. A 100 Mb LAN should be capable of at least 10 MB/s.

What can be done from the QNX 4 end to improve the data transfer
performance?

Pavel,

Here’s the output from sin ver/args

PROGRAM NAME VERSION DATE
/boot/sys/Proc32 Proc 4.25Q Jul 18 2005
/boot/sys/Proc32 Slib16 4.23G Oct 04 1996
/boot/sys/Slib32 Slib32 4.24B Aug 12 1997
/bin/Fsys Fsys32 4.24Y Apr 23 2002
/bin/Fsys Floppy 4.24B Aug 19 1997
/bin/Fsys.eide eide 4.25G Apr 15 2002
//1/bin/Dev32 Dev32 4.23G Oct 04 1996
//1/bin/Dev32.ansi Dev32.ansi 4.23H Nov 21 1996
//1/bin/Dev32.ser Dev.ser 4.25A Feb 14 2003
//1/bin/Dev32.par Dev32.par 4.25A Jan 08 2001
//1/bin/Dev32.pty Dev32.pty 4.23G Oct 04 1996
//1/bin/Pipe Pipe 4.23A Feb 26 1996
//1/bin/Mouse Mouse 4.24A Aug 22 1997
//1/bin/Fatfsys Fatfsys 4.26D Aug 28 2002
//1/bin/Net Net 4.25E Apr 24 2002
//1/bin/Net.via Net.via 4.25H Apr 08 2005
//1/*/usr/ucb/Socket Socket 4.25K Feb 12 2003
//1/bin/io-usb USB 1.00A Oct 04 2005
//1/bin/Fsys.umass scsi 4.25G Oct 04 2005

4 System /bin/Fsys -Hdisk160
5 System /bin/Fsys.eide fsys -h255,63 -Ndsk0 -n0=hd0. -n5=cd0. eide -a1f0 -i14
26 System Fsys.floppy
4961 sfd /bin/Fsys.umass -v fsys -n Direct-Access=ky
4963 sfd /bin/Fsys.umass -v fsys -n Direct-Access=ky


Gord




“Pavel Kycina” <xkycina@microstep-hdo.sk> wrote in message news:44850693$1@news.microstep-hdo.sk

What disk driver (Fsys.xxx) are you using in QNX4?

PK

“Gord Sipko” <> gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> > wrote in message
news:e61mfm$adl$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
Data collected on a QNX 4 system (600 MHz P3) is copied to a WinXP based
system (1.0 GHz Laptop )for post-processing. Currently the copy happens
across a 100 Mbit LAN connection using nfs (MS Services for UNIX). The
copy uses a PERL script with several "cp -Rcvn " in it. The data being
copied consists of a mix of binary files sized from 200MB down to several
KB.

Several tests have been performed to determine the effective data transfer
rate of a number of different transfer methods using a fixed set of 36
files totaling 605MB (5 files account for 550MB, the remainder are small):
QNX 4 to Laptop via 100 Mb LAN/nfs - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.0 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 1.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
0.5 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.6 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB Flash Memory Stick - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.4
MB/s

By way of comparison, copying the 605MB data from Windows to Windows
produced transfer rates of:
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to W2k Network Server - Effective
Transfer Rate = 4.0 MB/s
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to 366 MHz W2k Desktop - Effective Transfer
Rate = 6.4 MB/s

The -O option for cp has been tried and produced no improvement in copy
times. The USB SmartDisk is capable of max sustained transfer rates of
15MB/s. A 100 Mb LAN should be capable of at least 10 MB/s.

What can be done from the QNX 4 end to improve the data transfer
performance?

\

Try to use Fsys.atapi instead of Fsys.eide.

PK
“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e675nk$3m4$1@inn.qnx.com
Pavel,

Here’s the output from sin ver/args

PROGRAM NAME VERSION DATE
/boot/sys/Proc32 Proc 4.25Q Jul 18 2005
/boot/sys/Proc32 Slib16 4.23G Oct 04 1996
/boot/sys/Slib32 Slib32 4.24B Aug 12 1997
/bin/Fsys Fsys32 4.24Y Apr 23 2002
/bin/Fsys Floppy 4.24B Aug 19 1997
/bin/Fsys.eide eide 4.25G Apr 15 2002
//1/bin/Dev32 Dev32 4.23G Oct 04 1996
//1/bin/Dev32.ansi Dev32.ansi 4.23H Nov 21 1996
//1/bin/Dev32.ser Dev.ser 4.25A Feb 14 2003
//1/bin/Dev32.par Dev32.par 4.25A Jan 08 2001
//1/bin/Dev32.pty Dev32.pty 4.23G Oct 04 1996
//1/bin/Pipe Pipe 4.23A Feb 26 1996
//1/bin/Mouse Mouse 4.24A Aug 22 1997
//1/bin/Fatfsys Fatfsys 4.26D Aug 28 2002
//1/bin/Net Net 4.25E Apr 24 2002
//1/bin/Net.via Net.via 4.25H Apr 08 2005
//1/*/usr/ucb/Socket Socket 4.25K Feb 12 2003
//1/bin/io-usb USB 1.00A Oct 04 2005
//1/bin/Fsys.umass scsi 4.25G Oct 04 2005

4 System /bin/Fsys -Hdisk160
5 System /bin/Fsys.eide fsys -h255,63 -Ndsk0 -n0=hd0. -n5=cd0. eide -a1f0 -i14
26 System Fsys.floppy
4961 sfd /bin/Fsys.umass -v fsys -n Direct-Access=ky
4963 sfd /bin/Fsys.umass -v fsys -n Direct-Access=ky


Gord




“Pavel Kycina” <xkycina@microstep-hdo.sk> wrote in message news:44850693$1@news.microstep-hdo.sk

What disk driver (Fsys.xxx) are you using in QNX4?

PK

“Gord Sipko” <> gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> > wrote in message
news:e61mfm$adl$> 1@inn.qnx.com> …
Data collected on a QNX 4 system (600 MHz P3) is copied to a WinXP based
system (1.0 GHz Laptop )for post-processing. Currently the copy happens
across a 100 Mbit LAN connection using nfs (MS Services for UNIX). The
copy uses a PERL script with several "cp -Rcvn " in it. The data being
copied consists of a mix of binary files sized from 200MB down to several
KB.

Several tests have been performed to determine the effective data transfer
rate of a number of different transfer methods using a fixed set of 36
files totaling 605MB (5 files account for 550MB, the remainder are small):
QNX 4 to Laptop via 100 Mb LAN/nfs - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.0 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 1.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
0.5 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
1.6 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB Flash Memory Stick - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.4
MB/s

By way of comparison, copying the 605MB data from Windows to Windows
produced transfer rates of:
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to W2k Network Server - Effective
Transfer Rate = 4.0 MB/s
WinXP Laptop via 100 Mb LAN to 366 MHz W2k Desktop - Effective Transfer
Rate = 6.4 MB/s

The -O option for cp has been tried and produced no improvement in copy
times. The USB SmartDisk is capable of max sustained transfer rates of
15MB/s. A 100 Mb LAN should be capable of at least 10 MB/s.

What can be done from the QNX 4 end to improve the data transfer
performance?

\

Pavel,

That was a great suggestion…

Before changing to Fsys.atapi I did a baseline copy test writing to the host computer’s own hd:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.2 MB/s

Changing Fsys.eide to Fsys.atapi the results for two of the tests are:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 5.8 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 3.6 MB/s

A significant improvement of 2x - 5x with just the Fsys driver change! This is a step in the right direction. Now to find other improvements…

Thanks again!
Gord



“Pavel Kycina” <xkycina@microstep-hdo.sk> wrote in message news:4487c508$1@news.microstep-hdo.sk
Try to use Fsys.atapi instead of Fsys.eide.

PK

“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e6kde3$45u$1@inn.qnx.com
Pavel,

That was a great suggestion…

Before changing to Fsys.atapi I did a baseline copy test writing to the host computer’s own hd:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.2 MB/s

Changing Fsys.eide to Fsys.atapi the results for two of the tests are:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 5.8 MB/s

5.8 with Fsys.atapi isn’t that much ( try playing with udma option)

QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 3.6 MB/s

A significant improvement of 2x - 5x with just the Fsys driver change! This is a step in the right direction. Now to find other improvements…

Thanks again!
Gord



“Pavel Kycina” <xkycina@microstep-hdo.sk> wrote in message news:4487c508$1@news.microstep-hdo.sk
Try to use Fsys.atapi instead of Fsys.eide.

PK

Thanks Mario!

The hardware/cabling being used supports UDMA 2. With this setting in Fsys.atapi the max rate is now 6.6M/s - a 13% improvement! I do have an 80 conductor cable here, so I might try it as well.

What can be done to boost network performance?

Gord
5.8 with Fsys.atapi isn’t that much ( try playing with udma option)

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 03:20:53 +0400, Gord Sipko
<gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote:

I do have an 80 conductor cable here, so I might try it as well.
And surely you’ll notice that change too.

Tony.

“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e6ksrt$dj7$1@inn.qnx.com
Thanks Mario!

The hardware/cabling being used supports UDMA 2. With this setting in Fsys.atapi the max rate is now 6.6M/s - a 13% improvement! I do have an 80 conductor cable here, so I might try it as well.

What can be done to boost network performance?

I’m pretty sure the issue is not the network itself. Make sure you are using the lastest version of TCP/IP (5.0), it contains many improvement in NFS.

Just to make sure it’s not NFS, try to ftp to and from the windows machine and compare the performance. Note that the harddisk could have been the bottleneck. Have you try network copy with the new setting.

Gord
5.8 with Fsys.atapi isn’t that much ( try playing with udma option)

Hi,

So what you guys are saying is that the Fsys.atapi is faster than the
Fsys.eide?

Are the parameters passed to Fsys.atapi the same as Fsys.eide?

Does it support CD/DVDs?

Why does QSSL setup the Fsys.eide as the default when the Fsys.atapi is
faster?

TIA

Augie


“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message
news:e6kde3$45u$1@inn.qnx.com
Pavel,

That was a great suggestion…

Before changing to Fsys.atapi I did a baseline copy test writing to the host
computer’s own hd:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 1.2 MB/s

Changing Fsys.eide to Fsys.atapi the results for two of the tests are:
QNX 4 to HardDisk - Effective Transfer Rate = 5.8 MB/s
QNX 4 / USB 2.0 / USB FireLite SmartDisk - Effective Transfer Rate =
3.6 MB/s

A significant improvement of 2x - 5x with just the Fsys driver change! This
is a step in the right direction. Now to find other improvements…

Thanks again!
Gord



“Pavel Kycina” <xkycina@microstep-hdo.sk> wrote in message
news:4487c508$1@news.microstep-hdo.sk
Try to use Fsys.atapi instead of Fsys.eide.

PK

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 18:38:30 +0400, Augie <augiehenriques@hotmail.com>
wrote:

Why does QSSL setup the Fsys.eide as the default when the Fsys.atapi is
faster?
That (Fsys.atapi) driver is far newer than any QSSL’s install CD you could

find…

Tony.

“Augie” <augiehenriques@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:e6mij1$ii8$1@inn.qnx.com

Hi,

So what you guys are saying is that the Fsys.atapi is faster than the
Fsys.eide?

Yes MUCH faster. Fsys.atapi support DMA while Fsys.eide doesn’t.

Are the parameters passed to Fsys.atapi the same as Fsys.eide?

No they are more like that of QNX6 driver.

Does it support CD/DVDs?

Yes.


We do however have some problem with Fsys.atapi and slave devices. It
doesn’t seems to use LBA nor can we set lba48 mode on slave HD.

  • Mario

So what you guys are saying is that the Fsys.atapi is faster than the
Fsys.eide?

Yes MUCH faster. Fsys.atapi support DMA while Fsys.eide doesn’t.

I forgot to say that it’s not only much faster but it uses far less CPU
power.

Using the 80 conductor cable and udma=4 doesn’t change a thing. The disk drive supports up to udma 5 but I’m not sure about the disk controller. With UDMA enabled in the BIOS, boot messages say udma2 with all hardware combinations. The PIII motherboard has the Intel 440BX chipset with a 7111 eide controller. The 440BX chipset appears to support ATA-66 but who knows…

We don’t have TCP/IP 5.0 so that may be a limiting factor as well. Given the speed of the USB 2.0 copy, I might persue that route instead of the network - the end objective is to get the data on the USB disk.

I have tried to retest the network side of things and currently cannot even come close to my previous test results. The onboard PCI network card and the add-on USB 2.0 card have been sharing the same interrupt and I’m in the early stages of trying to get this sorted out. The USB card has been removed and the network speed is still way down.

Gord
“Mario Charest” postmaster@127.0.0.1 wrote in message news:e6ma9p$d7d$1@inn.qnx.com


I’m pretty sure the issue is not the network itself. Make sure you are using the lastest version of TCP/IP (5.0), it contains many improvement in NFS.

Just to make sure it’s not NFS, try to ftp to and from the windows machine and compare the performance. Note that the harddisk could have been the bottleneck. Have you try network copy with the new setting.

“Gord Sipko” <gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote in message news:e6n442$lt$1@inn.qnx.com
Using the 80 conductor cable and udma=4 doesn’t change a thing. The disk drive supports up to udma 5 but I’m not sure about the disk controller. With UDMA enabled in the BIOS, boot messages say udma2 with all hardware combinations. The PIII motherboard has the Intel 440BX chipset with a 7111 eide controller. The 440BX chipset appears to support ATA-66 but who knows…

i don’t think UDMA over 2 were support by the 440BX chipset. I do think 6.6 Meg very low though. My 6 years old laptop gives me 10Mbytes/sec raw read speed.



We don’t have TCP/IP 5.0 so that may be a limiting factor as well. Given the speed of the USB 2.0 copy, I might persue that route instead of the network - the end objective is to get the data on the USB disk.

I have tried to retest the network side of things and currently cannot even come close to my previous test results. The onboard PCI network card and the add-on USB 2.0 card have been sharing the same interrupt and I’m in the early stages of trying to get this sorted out. The USB card has been removed and the network speed is still way down.

Gord
“Mario Charest” postmaster@127.0.0.1 wrote in message news:e6ma9p$d7d$1@inn.qnx.com


I’m pretty sure the issue is not the network itself. Make sure you are using the lastest version of TCP/IP (5.0), it contains many improvement in NFS.

Just to make sure it’s not NFS, try to ftp to and from the windows machine and compare the performance. Note that the harddisk could have been the bottleneck. Have you try network copy with the new setting.

On Tue, 13 Jun 2006 23:37:48 +0400, Gord Sipko
<gsipkoATnxtenergyDOTcom@xyz.com> wrote:

Using the 80 conductor cable and udma=4 doesn’t change a thing. The
disk drive supports up to udma 5
I get stable ~18MBps throughput on “cp -V /dev/hd0t77 /dev/null”.

Tomorrow I’ll post the Advantech’s mobo model and the HDD details.

Tony.