HELIOS UB+ file server offers record performance (600MB/s)

Sustained performance
LanTest results
(click on thumbnail)
1x 1 Gigabit
1x 10 Gigabit
2x 10 Gigabit
2x 10 Gigabit
3x 1 Gigabit

After using 1 Gigabit Ethernet for almost a decade, the time is right to investigate server solutions utilizing 10 Gigabit network servers. 10 Gigabit Ethernet for Mac and Windows clients will go mainstream in the future. To keep up with 10 Gigabit networks the server needs to provide sufficient disk I/O, which cannot be achieved by using traditional Fibre Channel or SCSI storage systems.

To avoid these limitations, we have chosen the Sun X4500 x64 based server (code name Thumper), which offers about 2 GB disk I/O per second using 48x 1 TB disks at a cost of less than 1,- Û (Euro) per Gigabyte for the complete server. Finally, our testing was focused on measuring the end-to-end performance with HELIOS LanTest 4.5.0. File services for Mac, Windows, and Web users are provided by the HELIOS UB+ Server Solutions Suite.

The results show that the HELIOS UB+ server solutions, in combination with the tested network and server, offer unparalleled performance that nobody has seen before. The total solution costs a fraction of competing file server storage solutions, which cannot offer this end-to-end performance.

Who would benefit from 10 Gigabit networks?

Q & A

Will any 10 Gigabit server offer this great performance?
No. We figured out that depending on the server, the 10 Gigabit adapter, the TCP/IP stack, the operating system, and storage the performance is very different.
Is 10 Gigabit Ethernet faster than Fibre Channel?
10 Gigabit Ethernet offers a 5 times faster bandwidth than 2 Gigabit Fibre Channel and a 2.5 faster bandwidth compared to a 4 Gigabit Fibre Channel. Another question is if the maximum Fibre Channel bandwidth can be utilized by the RAID system and the server/workstations. The Sun X4500 system offers up to 2 GB (Gigabytes) disk I/O performance, which is 5 times better than a 4 Gigabit Fibre Channel. An Apple Xserve RAID offers about 130 MB/sec.
Is a total server throughput of 600 MB/s good?
Yes, this is excellent and represents already 60% of the maximum bandwidth available. This also requires a multi-CPU server, fast storage, and a fast TCP/IP stack.
Is every switch offering 10 Gigabit at this performance?
No. Many switches only offer one or a few 10 Gigabit ports but many 1 Gigabit ports. Usually these switches cannot handle full 10 Gigabit traffic.
Will 10 Gigabit fiber-optic crossover cables work?
Yes. A server can be directly connected with a workstation using a standard LC/LC cable. The LC/LC cable uses swapped transmit and receive wires by default.

Tested Configuration

Server:

Clients:

Network:

Software:

1x HELIOS UB+ Server Solutions Suite

Benchmarking has been performed based on HELIOS UB+, with HELIOS LanTest 4.5.0 which is capable of 10 Gigabit Ethernet.

Glossary

XFP
A 10 Gigabit small form factor pluggable module is called "XFP". XFP cards and switches do not have a direct cable or fiber connection. Instead, an XFP transceiver is needed, e.g. an XFP optical transceiver with duplex LC fiber connector or an XFP copper-CX4 adapter. Some cards do not require an XFP and use an on-board fiber or copper connector.

SFP+
Same as XFP but with a very small form factor. The Arastra switch uses the more advanced SFP+.

LC optical fiber-optic cable
A fiber-optic cable connector type that is used with SR Ethernet ports. Some cards already have SR connectors that allow using LC cables. Some other cards require an XFP-SR adapter to use LC fiber-optic cables. The LC cable has the benefit that both the receive and send cables are settled in a fixed connector. For the HELIOS 10 Gigabit testing we used LC/LC cables from Belkin.

10 Gigabit media types

All listed media types are supported via SFP+ modules using the Arastra switch.
Media type Description
10GBASE-CR 10 m over copper twinax
10GBASE-LR 10 km over SMF
10GBASE-LRM 220 m over OM1/2/3 MMF
10GBASE-SR 300 m over OM3 MMF
1000BASE-LX 10 km over SMF
1000BASE-SX 275 m over OM1 MMF
1000BASE-T 100 m over UTP

Jumbo Frames
This is an option to change the default Ethernet packet size to a higher value up to 9000 bytes. However, not every node is able to do jumbo frames. It is best to use jumbo only in a 10 Gigabit-only network, for other traffic (Internet, etc.) a second standard Ethernet port can be used.

PCI-Express
A very modern PCI 64-bit slot system. Mac Pro systems offer PCI-Express slots.

PCI-X
A 64-bit PCI slot used in many systems. Note that the Sun X4500 uses the PCI-X slot system, some other Sun servers already use PCI-Express.

EOS
The operating system used in Arastra switches. Command line and commands are similar to Cisco IOS.

Cut-through switching
"cut-through" switching is a switching method where the switch starts forwarding a packet before the whole frame has been received. The Arastra switch specifies a sub-microsecond latency for all packet sizes using cut-through switching.

Megabit vs. Megabyte
Mb (Megabit)
MB (Megabyte)

8 Mb=1 MB

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