A Framework for Measuring the Performance and Power Consumption of Storage Components under Typical Workload

Abstract

Although the cost of storage components are reported
accurately by the vendors, it is not clear whether the performance (IOps,
MiBps) and power consumption (W) specifications they provide are accurate
under ‘typical’ workloads. Accurately measuring this information
is a vital step in providing input for optimal storage systems design. This
paper measures storage disk performance and power consumption using
‘typical’ workloads. The workloads are generated using an open source
version of the (industry standard) SPC-1 benchmark. This benchmark
creates a realistic synthetic workload that aggregates multiple users
utilizing data storage simultaneously. A flexible current sensor board has
also been developed to measure various storage devices simultaneously.
This work represents a significant contribution to data storage benchmarking
resources (both performance and power consumption) as we
have embedded the open source SPC-1 benchmark spc1 within an open
source workload generator fio, in addition to our flexible current sensor
development. The integration provides an easily available benchmark for
researchers developing new storage technologies. This benchmark should
give a reasonable estimation of performance with the official SPC-1
benchmark for systems that do not yet fulfill all the requirements for an
official SPC-1 benchmark. With accurate information, our framework
shows promise in alleviating much of the complexity in future storage
systems design.