By Stephen Hynes | May 23, 2024| SANBlaze
In this blog post we answer three of the most common questions on the advantages and disadvantages of using the free FIO test tool versus the SANBlaze testing system.
Q1. What is the IO engine being used in the SANBlaze system? And what are the advantages and disadvantages of using the SANBlaze IO engine compared to FIO?
We have modified the Linux kernel driver to interface into our software package. We have the ability to make customizations to that driver to support features our customers are asking for, such as the ability to inject PCIe resets (for example.) This allows for a high performance, highly customizable solution. The disadvantage is that our tool is not the same as FIO so the customer would not be able to port their existing FIO scripts into our test tool. However, SANBlaze offers many “canned” test scripts to save customers time in creating their own, while also offering technical support, the ability to customize, and high scalability that is not present in free tools like FIO.
Q2. Could you explain the mechanism of the SANBlaze system to perform io cmds and nvme cmds?
We have the ability to send commands in two ways. One is using our high performance test generator. There is a test type (read/write/compare/etc.) that can be defined using various parameters (blocks size, threads, io pattern, etc.) and then started to a given device. The other way is using our generic IO generator which allows for individual commands to get sent to a device. These commands include any NVMe command.
Q3. How do you translate the fio commands to the SANBlaze io commands?
The table below includes the fio options and parameters along with their SANBlaze equivalents:
If you are doing very basic io testing, FIO is a useful and free tool. But if you need more advanced testing that is highly scalable and customizable to your unique environment, with help from an expert technical support team, take a look at SANBlaze. We provide everything you need to make your advanced testing go smoothly, efficiently, and cost-effectively.
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