[kwlug-disc] Trouble Reading 1 TB Hard Drive in USB SATA Dock

[Khalid Baheyeldin]

On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 12:39 PM Khalid Baheyeldin <kb at 2bits.com> wrote:

> On Sun, Jan 23, 2022 at 6:57 PM Ron Singh <ronsingh149 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Doing a backup of 13.5 Gig of data(mostly small files) from my MS
>> Onedrive(locally sync'd on my SSD) onto a 5400RPM 512G USB3 2.5"
>> HDD(Hitachi), I am seeing Thunar sucking up 18%-26% of my i7-2640M CPU for
>> the duration. PC is running Mint 20.2 Xfce.
>>
>
> I got a USB 3.0 dock, and connected it to the same 'server' (i.e. desktop)
> that had the now dead e-SATA
> dock. The server has only USB 2.0 ports and will be replaced soon with
> another desktop that has USB 3.0.
>
> Here is a detailed capture of performance data before, during and after
> the backup at 5 minute intervals.
> The tool is dstat.
>
> The incremental backup size was 17GB.
>
> As you can see, wait for i/o is high, but that is expected for any
> intensive disk operation.
> What is also high is user time, and I think this is because of using USB
> and not SATA.
>
> stem---- --total-cpu-usage-- ---load-avg--- ---procs--- ---system--
> -dsk/total- --io/total-
> ime     |usr sys idl wai stl| 1m   5m  15m |run blk new| int   csw | read
>  writ| read  writ|
> 03:56:37|  4   0  95   0   0|0.26 0.22 0.19|2.0   0 0.1| 296   294 |   0
>  42k|   0  3.56 |
> 04:01:37|  4   1  94   2   0|0.73 0.32 0.22|3.0 1.0 0.3| 358   358 |5644k
>   45k|50.1  4.10 |
> 04:06:37|  7   2  78  13   0|1.92 1.11 0.58|3.0 1.0 0.1|1119  1254 |  31M
> 1365k| 418  10.0 |
> 04:11:37| 20   3  50  28   0|2.84 2.04 1.12|3.0   0 0.5|2244  3133 |  25M
>   16M| 336  47.8 |
> 04:16:37| 18   2  50  29   0|3.21 2.66 1.65|1.0 2.0 0.2|1877  2470 |  19M
>   14M| 245  46.2 |
> 04:21:37| 21   3  42  34   0|2.59 2.72 1.97|2.0 2.0 0.2|2030  2752 |  22M
>   22M| 226  57.1 |
> 04:26:37|  7   1  71  20   0|1.30 1.96 1.87|  0 2.0 0.0|1081  1381 |  10M
> 4037k| 227  13.3 |
> 04:31:37|  6   1  84   9   0|0.43 1.24 1.60|5.0   0 0.3| 740   979 |5083k
>  933k| 113  7.02 |
> 04:36:37|  4   0  95   0   0|0.29 0.66 1.24|1.0   0 0.0| 314   318 |5338B
>   43k|0.10  3.72 |
>
> When I swap the servers, I will check if USB 3.0 is faster, and uses less
> CPU time.
>

I swapped the server with a newer (i.e. 2013) motherboard that has USB3.0.

As you can see, CPU usage is still very high, and even higher than USB 2.0.

stem---- --total-cpu-usage-- ---load-avg--- ---procs--- ---system--
-dsk/total- --io/total-
ime     |usr sys idl wai stl| 1m   5m  15m |run blk new| int   csw | read
 writ| read  writ
03:42:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.19 0.20 0.18|3.0   0 0.5| 290   381 |   0
 42k|   0  3.57
03:47:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.15 0.15 0.16|4.0   0 0.1| 308   398 |   0
 40k|   0  3.19
03:52:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.15 0.14 0.15|2.0   0 0.5| 281   370 |   0
 41k|   0  3.41
03:57:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.16 0.13 0.14|1.0   0 0.1| 284   371 |   0
 40k|   0  3.28
04:02:26| 13   2  83   2   0|1.85 0.65 0.31|5.0   0 0.3|1800  2697 |  21M
6950k| 206  18.1
04:07:26| 58   5  29   7   0|3.42 2.32 1.13|1.0 2.0 0.1|5469  7814 |  57M
53M| 515   120
04:12:26| 50   5  37   7   0|2.42 2.58 1.59|4.0   0 0.5|5593  8179 |  58M
36M| 601  88.5
04:17:26| 61   6  25   8   0|3.30 3.15 2.13|5.0   0 0.1|6013  8730 |  65M
60M| 547   148
04:22:26| 58   6  28   8   0|3.15 3.23 2.47|3.0 1.0 0.2|5830  8408 |  61M
56M| 561   141
04:27:26| 55   5  34   6   0|2.84 2.96 2.56|4.0   0 0.1|5636  8276 |  57M
31M| 555  80.5
04:32:26| 55   5  32   8   0|3.18 3.05 2.71|1.0 1.0 0.2|5641  8264 |  61M
42M| 544   103
04:37:26| 50   5  36  10   0|3.50 3.13 2.83|  0 2.0 0.1|5389  7839 |  55M
39M| 549  96.2
04:42:26| 21   3  71   5   0|0.37 1.74 2.35|  0   0 0.6|2593  3842 |  25M
14M| 247  37.6
04:47:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.15 0.70 1.72|  0   0 0.1| 298   387 |  16k
40k|0.50  3.17
04:52:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.13 0.31 1.26|1.0   0 0.5| 297   387 |1830B
39k|0.06  3.37
04:57:26|  2   0  97   0   0|0.13 0.18 0.93|1.0   0 0.0| 284   370 |  68B
41k|0.02  3.42

All this reminds me why I opted for e-SATA many years ago.
-- 
Khalid M. Baheyeldin
2bits.com, Inc.
Fast Reliable Drupal
Drupal performance optimization, hosting and consulting.
"Sooner or later, this combustible mixture of ignorance and power is going
to blow up in our faces." -- Dr. Carl Sagan
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