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Questions tagged [benchmarking]

The process of running a computer program to assess performance.

Benchmarking is process of running a suite of programs and derive at a score which can be used to compare different hardware.

There are various types of benchmarking software, each for a specific hardware subset.

Some of the professionally used benchmarking software include

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How can I produce high CPU load on a Linux server?

I’m currently in the process of debugging a Cacti installation and want to create CPU load to debug my CPU utilization graphs. I tried to simply run cat /dev/zero > /dev/null, which works great but only utilizes 1 core: Is there a better method of…
Oliver Salzburg
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What do I need to consider when buying hardware to meet my needs?

I'm looking to build a new computer from the ground up. I'm not sure what to look out for and need guidance and help on how to pick the hardware needed to construct my new rig. How do I know what to buy? How do I find out if a given CPU will be…
Darth Android
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Why is my HDD so slow on the "4K" speed tests?

What is wrong with my speed at 4K? Why is it so slow? Or is it supposed to be like that? Is that speed okay? Why do I have such low speed at 4K?
User6539
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How to test router-to-PC connection speed?

Is there a way to benchmark how fast my router is connected to my PC, independent of the internet? I've had slower-than-usual internet-based benchmarks, and I'm having a hard time figuring out if it's because of a bad router-to-PC connection…
user541686
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Is there an equivalent of Memtest86 for CPUs?

I need an easy way to do system stability tests. I have come to rely on Prime95 which does a fantastic job of proving stability (or instability) very quickly; but it requires an OS installed. I would like something like Prime95 that stresses both…
Nick Whaley
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Performance difference between SD and MicroSD cards?

If you compare a MicroSD card with an advertised speed of 48 MB/S to a full size SD card with an advertised speed of 48 MB/S (from the same manufacturer), should their performances be identical? Or is there anything about the size reduction of a…
Amazon Dies In Darkness
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Bad NTFS performance

Why is it that NTFS performance is so lousy compared to, for example, Linux/ext3? Most often I see this when checking out (large) source trees from Subversion. Checkout takes around 10-15 minutes on NTFS, while corresponding checkout on Linux (on…
JesperE
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How to measure disk performance?

A friend has asked me to perform maintenance oh his computer. The described symptoms point to a performance issue with the hard drive. I want to objectively confirm this suspicion by measuring the performance of his 5400 RPM disk. Which tools would…
Jakub Šturc
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Fastest Linux Filesystem on Shingled Disks

There is considerable interest in shingled drives. These put data tracks so close together that you can't write to one track without clobbering the next. This may increase capacity by 20% or so, but results in write amplification problems. There is…
gmatht
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Why are 4k reads in hdd/ssd benchmarks slower than writes?

There are several benchmark tools available to test the speed of a pc drive. Here is an benchmark example of a SATA SSD: Sequential Read : 718.498 MB/s Sequential Write : 777.414 MB/s Random Read 512KB : 160.541 MB/s Random Write 512KB : 838.930…
mgutt
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Good OS X Hard Drive Benchmark

What software can provide some insight on the performance of the hard drive in my MacBook Pro? I would be interested in both sequential and random read and write performance. This is in the context of understanding the improved performance of a…
Erv Walter
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AFP, SMB, NFS which is the best data transfer protocol?

I have a computer with large hard disks running Gentoo. I have to serve med/big files via a wired network to Apple devices (all of them running OS X). Which protocol is the best for the following needs ? : Speed Ease of use (by the clients and the…
Kami
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Are there any benchmarks showing difference between hardware virtualisation enabled/disabled?

I have a 13" sub-laptop/large-netbook, it has an AMD Athlon Neo X2 L335, and I chose this one because it supports hardware virtualisation. In the end, I hardly do any virtualisation on it, however, when I do... it is fast. To my shock, I went in to…
William Hilsum
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Why is moving files between btrfs subvolumes an expensive operation?

From what I understand, btrfs subvolumes share the same file system "storage", so I was surprised to know that moving files between different subvolumes is an expensive operation, like moving between different filesystems (copy + delete). I was…
m.alessandrini
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How come my Intel 520 180GB SSD performs extremely poorly?

I recently installed a new Intel 520 series 180GB SSD in my brand new MacBook Pro. The system is as follows: Model: MacBook Pro 15-inch, Late 2011 (MacBookPro8,2) Processor: 2.4 GHz Intel Core i7 Memory: 16 GB 1333 MHz DDR3 Graphics: AMD Radeon HD…
Willem
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