FILE SYSTEM PERFORMANCE

Executive Overview

The Solaris™ 10 06/06 Operating System (OS) introduces a major new data management technology — the Solaris ZFS file system. Replacing the traditionally separate file system and volume manager functionality found in most operating environments, Solaris ZFS provides immense capacity and performance coupled with a proven data integrity model and simplified administrative interface.

Today, file systems aim to provide efficient access to data storage and information. While traditional UNIX® file systems and Solaris ZFS alike can benefit from additional
performance enhancements, the performance profile and characteristics of Solaris ZFS are qualitatively different from file systems such as the ext3 file system used in the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Enterprise Server environment and similar architectures. This white paper explores the performance characteristics and differences of Solaris ZFS and the ext3 file system through a series of benchmarks based on use cases derived from common scenarios, as well as the IOzone File System Benchmark (IOzone benchmark) which tests specific I/O patterns. Testing results reveal:

• Solaris ZFS outperforms the ext3 file system in tests that represent the storage and data requests typically made by database, mail server, and Web applications.

• The various ext3 file system mount options available require making a trade-off between data integrity and performance — creating implications for environments in which continuous access to data is critical. Such trade-offs are not necessary in Solaris ZFS.