bench

A simplistic benchmark program.

bench performs 5 benchmark tests:

disk
Create a large file then perform sequential and random seeks.
screen
Write lots of characters to the screen.
sieve
Compute prime numbers with the sieve of Erathosthenes. Mostly a memory benchmark.
mandelbrot
Compute a mandelbrot set - a floating point benchmark.
tree
Create, read, and remove a tree of little files.
I wrote most of this program in the late 1980s and it shows its age. Personally I would trust only the disk and tree benchmarks to tell anything about performance of real applications.
bench-20031024.tar.gz 2002-06-20 14kB
Fixed largefile support, added maxlen parameter to disk benchmark to restrict length of test file.
bench-20020317.tar.gz 2002-03-17 12kB
Added benchmark "largedir", which creates a single directory with many small files, as a separate program.
bench.tar.gz 1998-02-21
Here are some results:
System Description Create Read Seeks
Bytes Elapsed CPU B/s Bytes Elapsed CPU B/s Seeks Elapsed CPU 1/s
Pentium 200MHz 128MB RAM, IBM DCAS-32160W, AIC7880 294322176 56.8 17.57 5.18173e+06 294322176 90.78 17.07 3.24215e+06 4131 51.65 0.5 79.9806
Pentium 90MHz 64MB RAM, IBM DCAS-34330, AIC7870 397869056 65.55 46.08 6.0697e+06 397869056 76.2 35.93 5.22138e+06 3317 58.54 1.05 56.6621
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 1x9GB Barracuda 1xFW 862584832 101.37 67.63 8.50927e+06 862584832 161.04 12.16 5.35634e+06 12836 42.22 1.31 304.027
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 4x9GB Barracuda 2xFW 961478656 123.02 122.87 7.81563e+06 961478656 30.63 12.96 3.13901e+07 15600 56.68 1.57 275.229
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 4x9GB Barracuda 2xFW 984219648 118.54 118.39 8.30285e+06 984219648 29.01 12.85 3.39269e+07 13980 51.6 1.48 270.93
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 432472064 164.86 59.08 2.62327e+06 432472064 88.59 23.19 4.88173e+06 4224 58.56 1.25 72.1311
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 408944640 184.08 53.83 2.22156e+06 408944640 82.91 21.82 4.93239e+06 4155 55 1.14 75.5455
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 309919744 143.51 46.34 2.15957e+06 309919744 81.83 17.76 3.78736e+06 3324 57.21 1.34 58.1017
HP I70 -> H60, NFS 100Mbit 198180864 307.28 15.95 644952 198180864 1716.45 10.8 115460 2241 81.79 2.64 27.3994
HP I70, HP-UX 10.10, Nike 10, 1xFW 76152832 69.77 3.8 1.09148e+06 76152832 65.47 3.73 1.16317e+06 10740 63.76 2.08 168.444
System Description Levels Directories Files Create Read Remove
Elapsed CPU Elapsed CPU Elapsed CPU
Pentium 200MHz 128MB RAM, IBM DCAS-32160W, AIC7880 5 3906 19530 147.14 11.7 38.28 36.58 8.67 6.79
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 4x9GB Barracuda 2xFW 5 3906 19530 38.43 11.48 9.56 5.69 27.25 10.22
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 4x9GB Barracuda 2xFW 5 3906 19530 44.15 12.86 9.7 5.59 28.16 10.51
HP K570 200MHz 1GB RAM, EMC 3330 768MB Cache 1x9GB Barracuda 1xFW 5 3906 19530 47.25 12.32 7.49 5.11 23.11 10.36
Pentium 90MHz 64MB RAM, IBM DCAS-34330, AIC7870 5 3906 19530 92.14 22.31 90.48 53.81 24.16 7.59
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 5 3906 19530 225.72 47.84 117.39 14.4 136.73 31.64
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 5 3906 19530 210.2 49.88 145.48 16.19 148.05 31.93
HP H60, Nike 20 5x4GB RAID-5, 1xFW 5 3906 19530 278.4 63.73 150.83 23.39 208.31 37.4
HP I70 -> H60, NFS 100Mbit 5 3906 19530 2505.98 1690.87 281.75 51.79 2379.86 1684.07
HP I70, HP-UX 10.10, Nike 10, 1xFW 5 3906 19530 472.55 38.63 244.05 18 217.46 18.06