Rsync performance on different processors – Atom performs quite well

Hi all,

A few weeks ago, we did some additional tests on the Intel Atom processor to see if it was suitable to use as an Rsync Server. It’s possible to get inexpensive PCs with low power consumption and small footprint cases for under AUS $500 (US $400) – and we felt they could make good Rsync servers.

Previously we noted that the ARM processors in many entry-level NAS devices were insufficient in their computing power. But how does the Atom perform?

Stress test results – single 42GB file

Intel Atom – Vista / cwRsyncServer:
Initial time taken: 1h8m
Update: 1h19m (see note)

QNAP – ARM / Embedded Linux:
Initial time taken: 7h55m
Update time taken: 4h57m

Intel Dual Core – Ubuntu Linux:
Initial time taken: 1h22m
Update time taken: 0h35m

So the Atom performs far better than the embedded NAS devices. We traced the cause of the slower update time to slow Disk I/O, and having to copy the old file to apply the in-file changes. We’re seeing if we can speed that up further.

Conclusion: The Atom based PC is suitable as an Rsync server, and is far cheaper than the equivalent NAS.

Note: Our test here is Rsyncing a single 42GB file with approximately 2MB of changes between the initial upload and the update. This is most definitely a stress test and the average user will not place such demands on the backup. Rsync performs very well on a typical file system that has lots of small files. It starts struggling for massive files – and that is why we ran this particular test. On typical filesystems that don’t have massive files, the difference in performance between an Atom and Core Duo processor may even be too small to notice.

4 thoughts on “Rsync performance on different processors – Atom performs quite well”

  1. hmm, when I try to comment this post, your stupid webserver claims:
    “You tried to run some Request/Code, which seems to aim to damage this Website, therefore the Request was blocked!
    If you didn’t run any Attack please notice the Webmaster about your Blocking.”

    Could you look into it?

    Reply
  2. I tried to post the following message, which I included in base64 since I guess your blog-tool triggers on some character I have in the post. You may want to base64 decode the message and try posting it to your blog yourself to see what triggers the problem:

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    Reply
  3. Oh, and I realized that your blog tool doesn’t even seem to handle the english alphabet plus digits correctly, since it *transformed* one of the characters in the base64 post above. The character preceding the substring “5IH” should be the letter “x” (0x78), but the blog-program translated it to 0xD7. Might want to submit a bug report to whomever created the web app…

    Reply
    • And the same exact invalid substitution again preceding the substring “5Ii”..
      That should be the last of it. Over and out..

      Reply

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