Iometer

IOMeter running under WinE (click to enlarge).

IOMeter is a disk I/O benchmark. You can measure e.g. your harddisk's speed for 4K block size, 50% read, 0% random and so on.

Here I give an example how to make IOMeter run on Linux. Note that the GUI ("iometer") only exists for Windows while the Linux packages only contain the backend ("dynamo"). Here is how to do it using WinE and IOMeter 2006.07.27 for Windows. Find out your distribution and proceed accordingly

Start IOMeter

SUSE Linux 12.1 x64

• Download IOMeter

cd
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iometer/iometer-stable/2006-07-27/iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin.tgz

• unpack it

cd
tar xvzf iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin.tgz

• start the dynamo backend

cd iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin
./dynamo

• Install wine

yast -i wine

• download IOMeter from sourceforge

cd
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iometer/iometer-stable/2006-07-27/iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• install IOMeter like this

cd
wine iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• Start wine

cd
cd ".wine/drive_c/Program Files (x86)/Iometer.org/Iometer 2006.07.27"
wine Iometer.exe

Kubuntu 11.10 x64

• Install some wine dependencies

sudo apt-get install gcc flex bison xserver-xorg-dev libfreetype6-dev make

• Install wine

wget http://ibiblio.org/pub/linux/system/emulators/wine/wine-1.3.32.tar.bz2
bunzip2 wine-1.3.32.tar.bz2
tar xvf wine-1.3.32.tar
cd wine-1.3.32
./configure && make && make install

• download IOMeter from sourceforge

cd
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iometer/iometer-stable/2006-07-27/iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• install IOMeter like this

cd
wine iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• Start dynamo

cd
cd ".wine/drive_c/Program Files/Iometer.org/Iometer 2006.07.27"
wine Dynamo.exe

• start IOMeter

wine Iometer.exe

Fedora 16 x32

• install wget
• download IOMeter

cd
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iometer/iometer-stable/2006-07-27/iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin.tgz

• unpack it

cd
tar xvzf iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin.tgz

• start the dynamo backend

cd iometer-2006_07_27.linux.i386-bin/src
./dynamo &

• install wine

yum install wine

confirm with y when asked

• download IOMeter from Sourceforge

cd
wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/iometer/iometer-stable/2006-07-27/iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• install IOMeter:

cd
wine iometer-2006.07.27.win32.i386-setup.exe

• start IOMeter:

cd
cd ".wine/drive_c/Program Files/Iometer.org/Iometer 2006.07.27"
wine Iometer.exe

Use Iometer

• delete all workers but one by clicking onto "Disconnect Selected Worker or Manager"
• select "Access Specifications" -> 512B; 100% Read; 0% random -> Add
• select "Disk Targets" -> Maximum Disk Size -> 5000 Sectors
• select a target. In this example, let's just choose sdh.
• select Test Setup -> Run Time -> 2 Seconds
• click on "Start Tests"
• as file name, enter example -> Ok
• find your data at ~/.wine/drive_c/Program Files/Iometer.org/Iometer 2006.07.27/example.csv
• or click on "Results Display":

TroubleShooting

dynamo prints debugging output that is quite usable and understandable.

Usability Problems

• what is a worker? Why do you need more than one? This could be a lot clearer by a simple tooltip.
• why do you delete a worker by clicking on "Disconnect Selected Worker or Manager"
• what is a manager? Why do I need to know?