large file reading

[Jack Challen]

siddharth bhosle wrote:
> i want to tweak my server disk read for maximum performance. The
> application is video streaming with 100 streams. So I don't need a large
> cache or frequent writes. How do I tweak my system for optimum
> performance? I have a pci-x raid card detected as scsi. the content is
> at 1.5Mbps.


disk/filesystem tuning is a fairly time-consuming process; you must find 
which combination works best for you. However, here's some general tips:

Mount your filesystems with the "noatime" option.
Consider using ext2 rather than ext3. You might also want to look into 
XFS, although that's not supported by Red Hat.
If you're using ext2/3, you probably want to use the "-R stride=x" and 
"-T largefile4" option.

Here's the stuff which is usually hardware dependant, YMMV:
Include as many spindles (disks) as you can.
RAID 0 or RAID 1+0 is /usually/ the fastest.
You may want to look at the tunables in /proc/sys/fs (or via sysctl.conf).



-- 
Jack Challen
Technical Consultant, OCSL.
http://www.ocsl.co.uk/