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FreeBSD tests

June 15, 2006
Author
Vadim Tkachenko
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I’m continuing my experiments with different OS and today I tested FreeBSD 6.0 on my box.
(more details about box and benchmark see here https://www.percona.com/blog/2006/06/13/quick-look-at-ubuntu-606/).
Initially I was very pessimistic about FreeBSD, as results were (in transactions/sec, more is better.
for comparison the results from Suse 10.0):

InnoDB
threads FreeBSD 6 Suse 10.0 Suse/ FreeBSD ratio
1 436.97 536.91 1.23
4 322.08 816.27 2.53
16 519.94 639.05 1.23
64 crash 547.07
256 357.09
MyISAM
threads FreeBSD 6 Suse 10.0 Suse/ FreeBSD ratio
1 335.56 429.89 1.28
4 165.16 863.23 5.23
16 322.66 537.67 1.67
64 crash 516.00
256 346.65

The crash with many threads in FreeBSD is known problem and is not MySQL fault. More info is available in FreeBSD bug report

I’m not big expert in FreeBSD and did not saw http://wikitest.freebsd.org/MySQL before. This page recommends to use libthr instead of libthreads.
The results with libthr looks better:

InnoDB
threads FreeBSD 6 Suse 10.0 Suse/ FreeBSD ratio
1 483.22 536.91 1.11
4 852.21 816.27 0.96
16 748.89 639.05 0.85
64 644.45 547.07 0.85
256 273.99 357.09 1.30
MyISAM
threads FreeBSD 6 Suse 10.0 Suse/ FreeBSD ratio
1 344.72 429.89 1.25
4 531.6 863.23 1.62
16 494.19 537.67 1.09
64 451.72 516.00 1.14
256 215.84 346.65 1.61

Interesting thing with 4-64 threads FreeBSD is better than Suse in InnoDB benchmark. I think it is related to InnoDB’s implementation of syncronious primitives. For MyISAM Suse is stable better.

Configuration params:
Box: Dual Core Athlon 3800+, 1Gb of RAM, Motherboard ASUS A8N-E

MySQL 5.0.22

params for InnoDB:
–innodb-buffer-pool-size=500M –max-connections=500

params for MyISAM:
–key-buffer-size=500M –max-connections=500 –skip-innodb

Suse 10.0:
kernel-smp-2.6.13-15.x86_64
NTPL

Schedulers comparsion.
By request I made tests with 4BSD scheduler:

InnoDB
threads FreeBSD 6 ULE FreeBSD 6 4BSD 4BSD / ULE
1 483.22 438.1 0.91
4 852.21 819.14 0.96
16 748.89 712.77 0.95
64 644.45 639.2 0.99
256 273.99 330.11 1.20
MyISAM
threads FreeBSD 6 ULE FreeBSD 6 4BSD 4BSD / ULE
1 344.72 324.9 0.94
4 531.6 518.96 0.98
16 494.19 476.57 0.96
64 451.72 444.77 0.98
256 215.84 258.42 1.20

Interesting with 256 threads BSD scheduler looks better.

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Eugene Marko
19 years ago

Both servers was just cleanly installed, or something was tuned (except libthr switching)?

Partha Dutta
19 years ago

So out of curiosity what was the mysql configuration, and how much memory on the machine?

stanojr
stanojr
19 years ago

suse 10 has nptl or linuxthreads ? and what kernel version ?

johnny
johnny
19 years ago

from http://wikitest.freebsd.org/MySQL

> There have been several reports that running with the 4BSD > scheduler offers better scheduling for MySQL workloads
> over the ULE scheduler.

R_T_F_M
R_T_F_M
19 years ago

Which my.cnf was used ? There is big difference between default my.cnf and my-huge.cnf when
benchmarking with super-smack and myisam

Alexander Leidinger
19 years ago

What about testing 6.1 and/or the upcomming 6.2 (beta versions are available)?

clipfish
19 years ago

I am very disappointed, as we are using Linux and always I heard FreeBSD is more faster, more better vs..

Peter Zaitsev
Admin
19 years ago

What to be disappointed about ? If you’re using Linux and it looks faster you should be happy with your choice 🙂

Also there are newer versions of FreeBSD which show serious performance gains for some workloads.

james
james
18 years ago

Far
Enough.

Said no pioneer ever.
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