My answer today is sponsored by the NTAP Advanced ONTAP class. This class covers how to measure items like the ones suggested below. Check out the NOW site for times, places, and costs..it's worth it!

Now to the answer:

To view NVRAM stats, you use the wafl_susp command. To find this command, you'll need to be in rc_toggle_basic or priv set advanced mode.

To zero out the stats, use:

filer*> wafl_susp -z

Then run your test.

Then to view the stats, run:

filer*> wafl_susp -w

You'll get screens full of info but the really important ones are the following 3:

cp_from_timer cp_from_log_full cp_from_cp

The first 2 are good, the 3rd one is bad. cp_from_timer is the number of times your NVRAM was flushed because half of the NVRAM was not filled in 10 seconds. cp_from_log_full is when you filled up half of your NVRAM and flushed it before the 2nd half of your NVRAM filled. Again, not a big deal. The 3rd one, cp_from_cp means that you filled the 2nd side of your NVRAM BEFORE you finished flushing the first half. This is bad. It's okay to have a few of them, but if they get to be a signifcant percentage of your cps, you're either over-running your NVRAM, or there's a problem with your disk subsystem and it's not writing out the data very quickly (like maybe your volume is 99% full).

Now individual disk utilizations are found with statit. This is similar to wafl_susp in that you start it, then you stop it and print out the results. The 2 command for statit are

filer*> statit -b

to start collecting

filer*> statit -e

to end it and dump the data.

You'll find how busy your individual disks are that way, plus a BUNCH of other things, but that's probably the most important.

But before I'd even go down these paths, I'd be watching my sysstat's very carefully. sysstat 1 is your friend in looking at performance. It can give you some really good clues.

Also check netstat, ifstat, and the other networking commands for errors. Check your switch ports for dropped packets. Things like flow control settings (a good thing, I suggest full flowcontrol on send and receive) can also mess up Gbit interfaces.

Anyway, this is probably all I can practically jam into a single message and have it make sense. Of course, the Global Support Centers at NTAP are always here and can help your diagnose these types of problems as well.

Hope this helps.

-- Adam Fox NetApp Professional Services, NC adamfox@netapp.com

-----Original Message----- From: Flavio E. Cardoso [mailto:flavio.cardoso@interchange.com.br] Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2001 11:46 AM To: toasters@mathworks.com Subject: Benchmarks

Hi Srs.

I´m looking for benchmark infomation about FILER 760, mainly about

NVRAM and disk´s operations (reading and writing). We´ve got the Filer and Servers on a Gigaethernet network but when we see on switch statistics the thoughtput is slowly than a fastethernet.

Flavio Cardoso