Using diskspd.exe to test storage system

Gone through a fine tool named diskspd from Microsoft , for generating load on the storage devices It is a storage load generator for testing/benchmarking storage subsystem on windows servers.

Just noting down the usage of diskspd.exe tool.

Download diskspd from https://gallery.technet.microsoft.com/DiskSpd-a-robust-storage-6cd2f223. Extract the zipped folder.After extracting, open a command prompt with administrative rights and then navigate to the directory where you have diskspd.exe file.

Create NTFS on the devices(iSCSI/FC/DAS)which you intend to load.

The necessary command line parameters are

• -c : workload file size, specified as (K/M/G)
• -b : Block size of the I/O, specified as (K/M/G). For example –b4K means an 4KB block size
• -d : Test duration specified in seconds. For example 50s.
• -t : Worker threads per target.
• -o : Outstanding I/Os per thread
• -w : Write percentage. W20 means Read-80% and writes 20%
• -L : To capture latency during test
• -r : Random or Sequential flag.
• -h : Disable caching at OS level

Followed by these parameters, the filesystem where the load has to be created to be specified.

Example:

./diskspd –c20G –b4K –d100 –o8 –t8 –h –r –w20 –L –Z1G F:\iotest.dat > dspd.out