Running FIO test in certain section of hard disk drive

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I am trying to use FIO to perform performance test on HDDs. I want to restrict random read test in particular section of HDD (For eg: Random read in first 1TB of HDDs). Can someone please let me know which argument in the config file I should to restrict test run in certain section of drives.

Prabhat

Posted 2017-06-20T14:48:44.473

Reputation:

Answers

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The most universal solution would be to partition you HDDs in the way you like (e.g. create a 1TB partition in the beginning of the drive) and run your tests on that partition.

A simpler solution is to run tests directly on the device file and use offset=int and size=int parameters to define which part of the HDD is to be tested. Of course, you won't be able to run filesystem tests on an arbitrary HDD region without partitioning and formatting it properly first, in which case, see above.

Dmitry Grigoryev

Posted 2017-06-20T14:48:44.473

Reputation: 7 505

Hi Dmitry, I looked for the size=int option for FIO. It looked to me like size option will allow to run IO of that particular size(as compared to restrict IO operation with the specified size). I am getting this from following link: https://linux.die.net/man/1/fio (plz search size). Am I reading it wrong?

– None – 2017-06-20T16:53:29.710

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@Prabhat Your understanding is incomplete and Dmitry's answer is correct. As stated in the links off his question, fio's size option can control the amount AND the end of the range. Fio actually has a separate option io_size to control just the amount.

– Anon – 2017-10-26T05:36:54.530