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From: =?iso-8859-1?Q?Michael_Gr=F8nager?= <gronager@mac.com>
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Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2012 11:45:33 +0200
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To: steve <steve@mistfpga.net>
Cc: bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net
Subject: Re: [Bitcoin-development] Scalability issues
Precedence: list

Hi Steve,

I see dramatic differences in performance on virtual machines vs running =
directly on the iron. I am not an expert in virtual machines, but it =
seems to me that they are weak when it comes to disk i/o. And berkeley =
DB, as used by bitcoin is a sucker for disk i/o. In top I easily hit =
>1/#processors in top wa, meaning that the cpu doing the blockchain =
download is just waiting for the disk all the time.

I would like to do a test keeping database log files in memory. It =
should not matter for durability of the wallet, as it flushes at each =
write anyway. As for the blockindex, it will remain consistent, but =
might be lagging some blocks behind at startup, which shouldn't really =
matter (except that the same block could end up appearing twice in the =
block00X files, inelegant, but not really a problem).

Otherwise the system you describe (raid0 over 6 disks) should perform =
like crazy wrt disk i/o, at least on par with SSD. It is your =
virtualization I am worried about.

Have a safe trip to down under!

/M

On 24/07/2012, at 21:56, steve wrote:

> Hi Michael,
>=20
> from what I have noticed, bitcoin blockchain download/verfication all
> happens in 1 thread.  (so multicores doesnt really help)
>=20
> That said, I have never tried on an ssd.
>=20
> What I do have is 6 SATA 6gbs configed as RAID0 Drives.
> 32gb of ram. ubuntu 64 (yeah I know), this runs upto 16 VM's
> (I have 4 of these)
>=20
> However I have not tried to download the blockchain on the master os,
> just in virtulisation.  However, the dedicated machines that I have =
been
> using for benchmarking the VM's against is a q6600 8gb ram sata2 hdd -
> Win 7 (seems faster than slackware...) to me it has always felt like
> network bandwidth was the issue.  I might instrument the bitcoin-qt =
exe
> to only pick low ping nodes (has someone already done this?)
>=20
> I guess it is time to start some benchmarking (like the gpu comparison =
page)
>=20
> hte verification for the 5 past 5 days was negliglable. I am off on a
> flight to australia tomorrrow, so I will set some breakpoints and do
> some timings in a debugger.
>=20
> This will all happen on an e-450 (wonderful machine!)
>=20
> Thanks very much for your response. it would seem that I am 'doing it
> wrong' :/
>=20
> cheers mate,
>=20
> steve
>=20
> (this message isnt signed because I have forgotten my password.)
>=20
> On 24/07/2012 09:25, Michael Gr=F8nager wrote:
>> Hi Steve,
>>=20
>> 45-90 minutes - note that its numbers from March/April, so a bit
>> longer today, but far, far away from the 12 hours.
>>=20
>> I am using libcoin and the bitcoind build based on this. Libcoin is
>> based on the Satoshi client, but refactured to use an async
>> concurrency model. I also did a minor tweeks to the db parameters. It
>> has earlier been tested up against Satoshi bitcoin where on some
>> OS'es it performs similarly (at least on some linuxes) and on some
>> faster (e.g. mac).
>>=20
>> What is your CPU load during a block download ? (both initially/up to
>> the point where verification sets in and after). The initial download
>> is typically disk I/O bound, the verification stage CPU bound, though
>> I lean to believe that even there it is disk I/O bound (at least on
>> my system ~50% CPU load). What should be better in libcoin is the
>> concurrency model. The Satoshi client uses a pure reentrant mutexes
>> model, that is not generally believed to motivate the best coding
>> practice nor performance, you might end up without the concurrency
>> you initially strived for *). As mentioned earlier libcoin uses a
>> pure async concurrency model (and so does libbitcoin btw).
>>=20
>> I would like to stress again that these numbers will depend largely
>> on the system running the test - I would call my laptop a bit over
>> the average today (MB Pro, 2.66Ghz i7 dual core, 8GBRAM, 512GB SSD).
>> But again 12 hours - I only reach such numbers on some of my VPS'es
>> (linode 1024) that are known for notoriously slow disk I/O. (here I
>> have a few % CPU load during the verification indicating indeed that
>> the disk i/o is the culprit).
>>=20
>> Cheers,
>>=20
>> Michael
>>=20
>>=20
>> *) I like this Dave Butenhof quote: "The biggest of all the big
>> problems with recursive mutexes is that they encourage you to
>> completely lose track of your locking scheme and scope. This is
>> deadly. Evil. It's the "thread eater". You hold locks for the
>> absolutely shortest possible time. Period. Always. If you're calling
>> something with a lock held simply because you don't know it's held,
>> or because you don't know whether the callee needs the mutex, then
>> you're holding it too long. You're aiming a shotgun at your
>> application and pulling the trigger. You presumably started using
>> threads to get concurrency; but you've just PREVENTED concurrency."
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>> On 23/07/2012, at 17:54, steve wrote:
>>=20
>> Hi Michael,
>>=20
>> On 23/07/2012 10:00, Michael Gr=F8nager wrote:
>>>>> I get a full blockchain from scratch in 45 minutes on my
>>>>> laptop, /M
>>>>>=20
>> Hang on a sec, in 45 minutes you can download the entire chain from=20=

>> the genesis block?
>>=20
>> I have been doing extensive testing in this area and would love to=20
>> know what is special about your setup (I have never had the entire=20
>> chain in under 12 hours, infact it is normally closerto 24.) I have
>> an extensive setup of test machines, everything from e4300 to
>> phenom2x6 to i5's.
>>=20
>> as an example on an amd e-450 with 4gb ram, and approx 3gb/s
>> internet connection it took 2 hours to sync the last 5 days.
>>=20
>> Maybe i am missing something important...
>>=20
>> Any additional information that you could provide to help me with=20
>> testing would be really appreciated.
>>=20
>> cheers,
>>=20
>> steve
>>=20
>>>=20
>>> =
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----
>>>=20
>>>=20
> Live Security Virtual Conference
>>> Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and=20
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>>> Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the
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>>> http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/=20
>>> _______________________________________________ Bitcoin-development
>>> mailing list Bitcoin-development@lists.sourceforge.net=20
>>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/bitcoin-development
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>>=20
>=20
>=20
> =
--------------------------------------------------------------------------=
----
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> Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and=20
> threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. =
Discussions=20
> will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in =
malware=20
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