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Flexense Data Management Software

Disk Space Analysis Performance

DiskBoss is optimized for modern multi-core and multi-CPU systems and is capable of analyzing multiple disks, directories or network shares in parallel using all CPUs installed in the computer. DiskBoss provides a number of different performance optimization options allowing one to tune the disk space analysis operations for user-specific hardware and storage configurations.

Disk Space Analysis Performance Options

In order to customize the disk space analysis performance optimization options, open the disk space analysis operation dialog, press the 'Options' button and select the 'Advanced' tab. The 'Dir Scan Threads' option controls how many parallel disk space analysis threads are used to scan input disks, directories and network shares. In the 'Fault-Tolerant' directory scanning mode, DiskBoss uses an individual processing thread for each input disk, directory or network share, but limits the maximum number of parallel scanning threads to the specified value. In the high-performance directory scanning mode, DiskBoss always uses the specified number of parallel directory scanning threads even when processing a single input disk, directory or network share.

NVMe SSD Disk Space Analysis Performance

For example, when analyzing files stored on a high-speed NVMe SSD disk, DiskBoss reaches up to 72,000 files/sec using a single disk space analysis thread. With two parallel analysis threads, the performance scales up to 113,000 files/sec and with four parallel analysis threads, the performance increases up to 172,000 files/sec showing a very good level of multi-threaded performance scalability. With six processing threads the analysis performance reaches up to 208,000 files/sec and with eight processing threads the performance increases up to 225,000 files/sec, which makes it possible to analyze 10 millions files within one minute.

When analyzing files stored on regular SATA SSD drives, which are significantly slower then NVMe SSD drives, the performance of the disk space analysis process reaches up to 26,000 files/sec using a single processing thread and scales up to 73,000 files/sec with four parallel analysis threads. With eight parallel analysis threads, the performance reaches up to 113,000 files/sec, which allows to analyze huge numbers of files relatively fast.

SATA SSD Disk Space Analysis Performance

Analyzing files stored on NAS storage devices via a network is more complicated because the user needs to take into account the speed and the latency of the network. If the computer, on which DiskBoss is installed, is connected to the NAS storage device via a high-speed, low-latency network, the performance of the disk space analysis operations may reach up to 13,000 files/sec with one processing thread, scale up to 48,000 files/sec with four parallel processing threads and increase up to 81,000 files/sec with eight parallel analysis threads.

NAS Server Disk Space Analysis Performance

On the other hand, if DiskBoss will need to access network shares via the Internet or via a long-distance, high-latency network, the performance of the disk space analysis operations will be relatively slow. One of the options to increase the performance of the analysis operations in such configurations is to set the 'High-Performance' directory scanning mode and increase the number of parallel directory scanning threads to 16 or even 32 disregarding how many CPUs are actually installed on the computer.

Analyzing large file systems distributed across a number of NAS servers may be a very time consuming operation and one of the ways to speed-up the disk space analysis process is to perform the analysis operation via a 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet network. With 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet the performance of the DiskBoss analysis operations continues to scale up to 108,000 Files/Sec with 8 parallel disk space analysis threads, which represents a 25% improvement compared to the standard Gigabit Ethernet.

2.5 Gigabit NAS Server Disk Space Analysis Performance

Due to a very wide adoption of laptops and NAS servers with built-in WiFi network interfaces, many users may consider analyzing NAS servers via the wireless network. But, the latency of the wireless network is much higher and therefore it will take much more time to complete the disk space analysis operation via the wireless network. The question is how much longer the user will need to wait and if it will save any significant amount of time via a wired network.

WiFi NAS Server Disk Space Analysis Performance

Based on our benchmarks, via a 5 GHz wireless network, DiskBoss reaches up to 1,500 Files/Sec with a single disk space analysis thread and scales up to 11,000 Files/Sec with 8 parallel disk space analysis threads, which is approximately 7 times slower compared to the standard Gigabit Ethernet and 10 times slower when compared to the 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet. So, if the user needs to analyze up to 1 million files, it is possible to use a wireless network. On the other hand, if the user needs to analyze a large NAS server with many millions of files, a low-latency Gigabit Ethernet or 2.5 Gigabit Ethernet is required.

Modern USB flash drives provide plenty of the storage space and are reasonably fast allowing one to store vast amounts of data for backup purposes. Sometimes, it may be required to analyze a USB flash drive in order to free the used disk space. When analyzing files stored on a USB flash drive, DiskBoss can reach up to 9,000 files/sec with a single disk space analysis thread. With two parallel disk space analysis threads, the performance increases up to 11,000 files/sec, which is good, but more than two parallel analysis threads improve the performance of the disk space analysis operations very slightly.

USB Flash Disk Space Analysis Performance

Today, modern IT environments widely deploy virtual servers and/or virtual workstations. Most of the popular virtualization platforms provide a high level of performance, but anyway some performance degradations are inevitable when a task is executed on a guest virtual machine compared to the same task executed directly on the host computer.

Virtual Machine Disk Space Analysis Performance

For example, when a virtual machine with 4 virtual CPUs is stored on an NVMe SSD disk and analyzing files stored on a virtual local disk drive, which is physically stored on the same NVMe SSD disk, the performance of the disk space analysis operations reaches up to 22,000 files/sec using one disk space analysis thread. With two parallel analysis threads, the performance of the analysis operations increases up to 29,000 files/sec and with four parallel analysis threads, the performance of the disk space analysis operations scales up to 41,000 files.