DiskPerf tracks 3000 disk, array performance

Allegro Consultants (408.252.2330) has released DiskPerf, a software solution for MPE/iX that tracks performance and potential IO transfer capabilities for disk devices serving HP 3000s. The program, sold for $5,000 with a two-week rental available for $1,500, is designed to help system managers improve performance of storage units, from the oldest SCSI devices to the newest XP arrays.

“It tells you how fast your disks are, how fast your system can transfer data from them, and just how well those fancy disk arrays are actually performing,” said Allegro’s president Steve Cooper. “With DiskPerf, you can finally get visibility into the physical IO capabilities of your system’s hardware and capabilities. Your storage vendors tell you that their disk system is fast, but how do you really know?”

Creator Stan Sieler said application-level performance tools and overall system performance tools don’t report as much about what hardware is really doing, “because they measure performance of the system as a whole, rather than the IO subsystem specifically. Measurement tools tell you what the system is doing now. DiskPerf tells you what the disk drives, channels, and CPU are capable of doing. Thus, they’re complementary products.”

The software talks directly to the MPE/iX IO system, bypassing the 3000’s memory manager and virtual memory layers, which can hide raw disk performance behind caching and virtual storage paging. All of DiskPerf’s operations are non-destructive, and the program can be run while users are on the HP 3000.

The software is also available for HP 9000 systems. More information and a free demo are available at the Allegro Web site, www.allegro.com/products/diskperf/hp3000.