[Some storage benchmarks on SBCs]

Cubietruck+ (H8) and CT Raid Subboard

1x Samsung EVO 750 256GB SSD

1x Corsair Force 120GB SSD

Disks contain ~1GB of previous test data in Raid1 Mode (120GB array).

CT Raid Subboard is connected to CT+ via SATA connector. Subboard also offers USB3 data connection.

I would test with additional Raid Modes but this board requires soldering tiny surface mount resistors to change modes. Raid 1 is what I need for my application so I won't be able to test Raid0, JBOD, or PM modes for a while. I'd expect all the IO is terrible, thanks to the Cubietruck+.

 

Command line used: iozone -e -I -a -s 1M -r 1k -r 2k -r 4k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2

              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread    read   write
            1024       1    1644    1997     7363     7732    7008    2004
            1024       2    2727    3359    12774    13928   12051    3345
            1024       4    4565    5268    23506    26897   20566    5257

Command line used: iozone -e -I -a -s 100M -r 4k -r 16k -r 512k -r 1024k -r 16384k -i 0 -i 1 -i 2

              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread    read   write 
          102400       4    6156    6876    25990    26144   25722    6284                                                          
          102400      16   10489   11175    58778    58498   57430   10719                                                          
          102400     512   12853   13055    86507    87503   86036   12977                                                          
          102400    1024   12916   14186    78472    85506   85974   12914                                                          
          102400   16384   12949   14395    94904    99168   97182   13241    

Command line used: iozone -a -g 4000m -s 4000m -i 0 -i 1 -r 4K -r 1024K

              KB  reclen   write rewrite    read    reread
         4096000       4    5765    7425    30598    29413                                                                          
         4096000    1024

This last one took so long I had to terminate it. Got things to do

 

 

Via usb2 on Windows10, I got writes of ~40MB/s (according to explorer). Will properly test with Windows10 + SATA3/USB3 later -- but I think the moral of the story is the CubieTruck+'s SATA->USB bridge is as bad as you heard.

 

Via USB3 on Windows10

 

Got the same results for 50MB, 1GB, and 4GB tests.

I feel like these 4k results may not be so great, but I don't have benchmarks without the RAID board to crosscheck. Maybe later.

[Best Chipset for NAS?]

BTW: Since it seems you bought already an CT+ and this 'famous' HDD-RAID subboard (a combination that shows worst storage performance ever) would you mind providing performance numbers to this thread: http://forum.armbian.com/index.php/topic/1925-some-storage-benchmarks-on-sbcs/

 

CT+ Raid board just arrived in mail yesterday, so I spent a few hours last night with it to try to get your stats.

 

Unfortunately, I was unable to make it work with any of their images -- and I couldn't get their toolchain working properly (even in a 12.02 64 vm as recommended), even after a few tries. I'll likely try it on the OPi PC hardware tonight to verify it works if possible, then hammer away on my CT+ paperweight again

 

I spoke with support about the board a week or so ago (before I ordered it) and was told it will also work with any computer via usb as well, but I couldn't get my desktop to detect any change in USB devices or raid controllers. Not even a usb sound, but I suspect it may only work via usb/pc in some, but not all of it's modes.

 

Speaking of the raid modes the board supports -- FYI: Modes are not configurable by software, or even jumper -- but by soldering resistors to fairly tiny points on the board. At the moment, I wouldn't recommend this to anyone.

 

Still looking at the clearfog pro for my application, will let you guys know when/if I pull the trigger. In the meantime, I'm still open for suggestions, though I'm mostly happy with the pricepoint on clearfog. You get what you pay for and it's not much more expensive than these 'toy' boards we play with.

 

@hojnikb -- Thanks for the suggestion. Will check it out.

 

Update: Posted stats to the above mentioned thread.

[Best Chipset for NAS?]

Here are of the results of using g_mass_storage module on jessie w/orangepi pc hardware. Data is coming from OTG and being written to usb3 drive (on usb2.0 bus) without encryption or raid.

 

 

'top' shows that im only using 1-2% of the cpu, so I'd imagine I have room for decryption and raid overhead.

 

Going to rebuild the kernel a few more times over the next week and try to increase the speed. Not sure where the bottleneck is but I know there are lots of usb modes/flags that I'm not modifying yet. I'm running full desktop version of debian, my next step will be scaling down to just the console version next.

 

For anyone reading this down the road, I had lots of issues getting g_mass_storage to work. Turned out adding "stall=0" to the modprobe string (as mentioned in other posts) made it run just fine.

[USBootPi]

Very nice project. I am also working on something similar. Looking forward to seeing more of your sourcecode released.

 

Very impressed with how much you stripped the kernel down -- the device (orange pi pc) boots very fast.

[Best Chipset for NAS?]

Thanks a ton for the info. Not just here, but everywhere. Doing homework on all this for the last few weeks and your posts in particular came up often.

 

What kind of transfer speeds would be safe to expect with the setup you've suggested? Would there be a huge difference between doing this on an H3 and an A20? A20 seems to have tons more support at the moment. I'm shooting for 35-60MB/s if possible.

 

I'll start looking at the Orange Pi as its price point is a lot easier to play with than the clearfog.

[Best Chipset for NAS?]

Hi All,

 

Which SOC gives best performance today for SATA I/O?

According to the Sunxi wiki: http://linux-sunxi.org/Sunxi_devices_as_NAS

"Since not every A20 based sunxi device uses GMAC networking (or even Ethernet at all) the following devices are the best choices: A20-OLinuXino-Lime2, Banana Pi, Banana Pro or Banana Pi M1+, Cubietruck, Hummingbird A20, Lamobo R1, Orange Pi, Orange Pi Mini or pcDuino3 Nano (Lite)."

I've actually got a cubietruck+ here (that uses a terrible USB to sata bridge) but it's a terrible choice. Hoping you guys (or tkaiser ) can steer me in the right direction. I could run out and order a banana pro, but I feel like A20 has been around a while and maybe there's something better today? Clearfog is looking nice, but I guess I'd need a pci-e sata card.

 

This isn't 'really' a NAS -- The actual use case is as follows:

 

 

 

As you can see, the inbound data will come from an OTG connection running g_mass_storage gadget to appear as usb disk to host pc. This is essentially a raid1 array that is decrypted via gpio keypad, and made available as a usb drive to another system. Hardware accel for the encryption would of course be welcomed.
 

I'll need something that doesn't use a usb->sata bridge, because usb will likely be tied up transfering inbound data -- and even if it wasn't they seem terribly slow. A good support community would of course be nice too -- The H8/a83T just doesn't seem to have it yet.

 

Any input would be appreciated.

 

Thanks all,

CMirra