Server Stress Testing

  • Hello,

    After spending some time recently chasing a disk IO problem this got me to start thinking about using a "stress test" to run on my machines before i put them out into production or help to track disk IO errors. Can anyone recommend any programs which you have used and are comfortable recommending. All i have found is SQLIO from MicroSoft.

    Any ideas or suggestions... Thanks a ton

    D

    DHeath

  • I would be interested in the same thing? I wanted to know what others are using and like for stress testing.

  • I install SQLIO and run a suite of scripts to get an initial performance benchmark for all disks when I setup a new server.

    I save the test output so that if I need to test the performance later, I have something to compare it to.

  • So i take it the "suite of scripts" are already prewritten specific to the server. I used SQLIO but didnt have anything to increase the stress as it sounds like you do with the added scripts.

    Maybe the SQLIO alone is enough...??

    Darryl

    DHeath

  • DHeath (2/15/2008)


    So i take it the "suite of scripts" are already prewritten specific to the server. I used SQLIO but didnt have anything to increase the stress as it sounds like you do with the added scripts.

    Maybe the SQLIO alone is enough...??

    Darryl

    The scripts are the same for every server, and run SQLIO for sequential read, sequential write, random read, and random write for IO sizes of 8k, 64k, 128k, and 256K on each disk on the server. It may not be the perfect test, but it does give me something quantitative to look at.

    If I see that one disk can write 120 MBs/sec and another writes 5 MBs/sec, then I have some hard numbers to take to a vendor. If I run the same tests 6 months later, and the disk is one-third as fast, I know I have a problem to look at.

  • Hey MVJ,

    Not sure if this is asking too much but are those scripts something you have available and willing to share or are they something that i would need to get on my side. Not looking for perfection by any means but something that can just do the job....and if what you have is working well for you then it may just be perfect for my situation 🙂

    Thanks

    Darryl

    DHeath

  • not at the office at the moment to check details but I have used sqlio to stress test the io system and it works well. The readme file you get with it expalains well how to use and gives a sample script i believe. you basically need to create a .bat file which contains examples of the io types you commonly see on your system, which you can derive by running perfmon and recording the counters in physical io.

    There is also sqliosim from microsoft which simulates sql activity, so you have sqlio to tell you the maximum throughput you can get from your disks, and sqliosim which tells you what you can expect to get from your SQL installation.

    HTH

    george

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  • DHeath (2/15/2008)


    Hey MVJ,

    Not sure if this is asking too much but are those scripts something you have available and willing to share or are they something that i would need to get on my side. Not looking for perfection by any means but something that can just do the job....and if what you have is working well for you then it may just be perfect for my situation 🙂

    Thanks

    Darryl

    http://www.sqlteam.com/forums/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=91785

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