fio raw block-level test - is it possible?

[ionictea]

So with other benchmark tools like vdbench - we can bench the entire block device without having to create a file system but it seems that with Phoronix you have to create a file system so that it can "cache" the fio binary as well as the run test in.

Is there a way to run "fio" on the raw volume? Using the user-config.xml via the EnvironmentDirectory directory to point to the mount point requires that the block device has a file system created on it

[Michael]

So with other benchmark tools like vdbench - we can bench the entire block device without having to create a file system but it seems that with Phoronix you have to create a file system so that it can "cache" the fio binary as well as the run test in.

Is there a way to run "fio" on the raw volume? Using the user-config.xml via the EnvironmentDirectory directory to point to the mount point requires that the block device has a file system created on it

There is nothing preventing you from adapting the test profile to run fio with a raw block device. It could rather easily be supported. If you haven't yet looked what a raw test profile looks like, here is fio: http://openbenchmarking.org/innhold/...6071e3ff314b6b you should find it locally within ~/.phoronix-test-suite/pts/fio

If you end up adapting the test profile to support raw block devices, I am happy accepting patches upstream. Alternatively, if you would like the support to be added via commercial agreement or are in need of other custom engineering services, feel free to contact us: commercial at phoronix-test-suite.com. Thanks.

[ionictea]

I did take a look at the sample files and it looks like when running "phoronix-test-suite benchmark fio" it parses user-config.xml for the mount point location then copies the fio binary over to it. Is there a way to modify "phoronix-test-suite" where is doesn't copy files into the target mount point?

root@box:/mnt# ls -l
total 1048600
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1073741824 Jun 13 13:57 fiofile
drwxrwxr-x 4 root root 4096 Jun 13 13:05 installed-tests
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jun 13 07:50 lost+found

root@box:/mnt# df -h /dev/sdb
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb 4.8G 2.1G 2.5G 46% /mnt

[Michael]

I did take a look at the sample files and it looks like when running "phoronix-test-suite benchmark fio" it parses user-config.xml for the mount point location then copies the fio binary over to it. Is there a way to modify "phoronix-test-suite" where is doesn't copy files into the target mount point?

root@box:/mnt# ls -l
total 1048600
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1073741824 Jun 13 13:57 fiofile
drwxrwxr-x 4 root root 4096 Jun 13 13:05 installed-tests
drwx------ 2 root root 16384 Jun 13 07:50 lost+found

root@box:/mnt# df -h /dev/sdb
Filesystem Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb 4.8G 2.1G 2.5G 46% /mnt

Take a look at the hdparm test profile or another for seeing how to handle situation of using like raw block device or basically testing something else besides the test install directory.

[ionictea]

The version of fio used with Phoronix Test Suite v6.4 is at 2.1.13 and I'd like to update it to 2.2.13 to use newer features as well as leverages fixes. Is this something a end user can do and upload it upstream?

[ionictea]

If a user wants to leverage a newer version of fio 2.2.13 how does one go about of getting it updated upstream?

[Michael]

If a user wants to leverage a newer version of fio 2.2.13 how does one go about of getting it updated upstream?

If you are able to modify the test profile and get it working with the newer 2.2.13 version, feel free to post a patch in this thread or a new thread and I can commit it. Thanks.

[ionictea]

Thanks!