I just got a new corporate laptop, a nice, shiny T60 (OK, it’s IBM black and therefore thoroughly incapable of reflecting on any part of the spectrum).

I noticed that doing disk-intensive work was much slower than I’ve been used to. I configured it as a server (see previous posts) and that helped a bit but not as much as I’d like to.

It seems the antivirus software is checking each and every file, and takes 100% of a CPU to do so. Were this not a dual-core box it would be begging for mercy.

Taking an entire CPU is unacceptable IMO. So I ran some benchmarks – the trusty postmark once more to the rescue:

After tweaking as a server, antivirus running, 100% CPU utilization while bench running:

Time:
344 seconds total
230 seconds of transactions (86 per second)

Files:
20092 created (58 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (95 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (43 per second)
9935 read (43 per second)
10064 appended (43 per second)
20092 deleted (58 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (1131 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (43 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (1.59 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (3.37 megabytes per second)

With a more efficient antivirus program instead, variable CPU utilization (from 10%-100%):

Time:
276 seconds total
174 seconds of transactions (114 per second)

Files:
20092 created (72 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (123 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (58 per second)
9935 read (57 per second)
10064 appended (57 per second)
20092 deleted (72 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (484 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (56 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (1.99 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (4.20 megabytes per second)

Disabling the antivirus makes it way faster for transactions:

Time:
174 seconds total
91 seconds of transactions (219 per second)

Files:
20092 created (115 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (222 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (110 per second)
9935 read (109 per second)
10064 appended (110 per second)
20092 deleted (115 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (268 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (108 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (3.15 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (6.66 megabytes per second)

Caching with UpTempo for a nice 50% boost in performance:

Time:
121 seconds total
65 seconds of transactions (307 per second)

Files:
20092 created (166 per second)
Creation alone: 10000 files (277 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 10092 files (155 per second)
9935 read (152 per second)
10064 appended (154 per second)
20092 deleted (166 per second)
Deletion alone: 10184 files (509 per second)
Mixed with transactions: 9908 files (152 per second)

Data:
548.25 megabytes read (4.53 megabytes per second)
1158.00 megabytes written (9.57 megabytes per second)

Not tweaking the laptop as a server resulted in > 400s runtimes in the default config (sometimes 500s). FYI, the drive is a smaller, 5400 RPM jobbie, not the 200GB 7200 RPM SATA I have my eye on.

One could extrapolate these results. On a bigger box the end results will differ but everything will remain relatively similar.

Obviously, antivirus is sorely needed in this day and age, but if you’re planning on doing heavy I/O be careful what antivirus program you pick and how it’s configured. Depending on the server, I’d gladly trade some protection in exchange for a bunch more performance. Or you can go Unix/Linux and not really have to bother.

I’d say setting up an antivirus program to only scan extensions that can be infected and only scan on creates/modifies and not reads, can boost performance significantly.

Interestingly, caching didn’t help much with antivirus enabled – most of the bottleneck was the antivirus since everything had to go through it first. What if this was a database/email/fileserver with heavy activity?

D