[TangerineSDR] Benchmarking Digital RF (HDF5)

[Tom McDermott]

Hi Bill -- thank you for running those benchmarks !
Hopefully they hold up for sustained writes.

I need to figure out why my system with HDF5 + gnuradio performs so poorly
in comparison.

-- Tom, N5EG




On Wed, May 29, 2019 at 7:08 AM Engelke, Bill via TangerineSDR <
tangerinesdr at lists.tapr.org> wrote:

> Benchmarking Digital_rf on Odroid
>
>
>
> There have been some deep concerns about the ability of a SBC to keep up
> with saving spectrum data using HDF5 (here using the MIT Digital_rf
> package, which uses HDF5 internally). I installed Digital_rf on my Odroid
> XU4 and ran the benchmarks that are included in the Examples folder.
>
>
>
> Writing to MicroSd card in the XU4 (SanDisk Ultra Plus, claimed speed 80
> MB/sec), benchmark-reported speeds
>
> 1.                     Writing raw binary data directly
>                                    133.36  MB/sec
>
> 2.                     Writing “simple single write” in HDF5
>                                 154.14 MB/sec
>
> 3.                     Writing “simple single write” in HDF5 with
> checksum        71.29 MB/sec
>
> 4.                     Writing      “        “    “  with checksum +
> compression L1        8.01 MB/sec
>
> Unexpected results here:
>
> a. HDF5 "simple write" is faster than writing raw binary
>
> b. top two speeds are faster than the claimed speed of the MicroSD card.
> Maybe the benchmark is measuring a burst rate during just the HDF5
> processing (?) Maybe there is some caching  or buffering going on.
>
>
>
> Writing to Western Digital USB 3 (spinning) external 4TB hard drive (incl.
> 64 MB internal cache) – benchmark-reported speeds
>
> 1.                     Writing raw binary data directly
>                                    103.66  MB/sec
>
> 2.                     Writing “simple single write” in HDF5
>                        96.04 MB/sec
>
> 3.                     Writing “simple single write” in HDF5 with
> checksum          55.02 MB/sec
>
> 4.                     Writing      “        “    “  with checksum +
> compression L1        7.67 MB/sec
>
> These results make a bit more sense than the MicroSD result. I can't find
> a claimed transfer speed for this hard drive on Western Digital's site.
>
>
>
> IF these results are representative (a big “if”) – then even a 4 TB
> spinning hard drive will be able to keep up with the PSWS data write rate.
> If anyone can confirm, reproduce, add to, or refute these results, I am
> most interested to know…
>
>
>
> -73-
>
> W. D. Engelke (Bill), Asst. Research Engr. AB4EJ
>
> Center for Advanced Public Safety
>
> Cyber Hall
>
> The University of Alabama
>
> Tuscaloosa, AL 35487
>
> Desk: (205) 348-7244
>
> Mobile: (205) 764-3099
>
>
> --
> TangerineSDR mailing list
> TangerineSDR at lists.tapr.org
> http://lists.tapr.org/mailman/listinfo/tangerinesdr_lists.tapr.org
>
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