MariaDB 5.3/5.5 has introduced a new join type “Hash Joins” which is an implementation of a Classic Block-based Hash Join Algorithm. In this post we will see what the Hash Join is, how it works and for what types of queries would it be the right choice. I will show the results of executing benchmarks [...]
btrfs – probably not ready yet
Every time I have a conversation on SSD, someone mentions btrfs filesystem. And usually it is colored as a solution that will solve all our problems, improve overall performance and SSD in particular, and it is a saviour. Of course it caught my curiosity and I decided to perform a benchmark similar to what I [...]
Intel 520 SSD in MySQL sysbench oltp benchmark
In my raw IO benchmark of Intel 520 SSD we saw that the drive does not provide uniform throughput and response time, but it is interesting how does it affect workload if it comes from MySQL. I prepared benchmarks results for Sysbench OLTP workload with MySQL running on Intel 520. You can download it there.
Benchmarking single-row insert performance on Amazon EC2
I have been working for a customer benchmarking insert performance on Amazon EC2, and I have some interesting results that I wanted to share. I used a nice and effective tool iiBench which has been developed by Tokutek. Though the “1 billion row insert challenge” for which this tool was originally built is long over, [...]
Testing Fusion-io ioDrive2 Duo
I was lucky enough to get my hands on new Fusion-io ioDrive2 Duo card. So I decided to run the same series of tests I did for other Flash devices. This is ioDrive2 Duo 2.4TB card and it is visible to OS as two devices (1.2TB each), which can be connected together via software RAID. [...]
New distribution of random generator for sysbench – Zipf
Sysbench has three distribution for random numbers: uniform, special and gaussian. I mostly use uniform and special, and I feel that both do not fully reflect my needs when I run benchmarks. Uniform is stupidly simple: for a table with 1 mln rows, each row gets equal amount of hits. This barely reflects real system, [...]
Testing Fusion-io ioDrive – now with driver 3.1
In my previous post with results for Fusion-io ioDrive we saw some instability in results, I was pointed that it may be fixed in new drivers VSL 3.1.1. I am not sure if this driver is available for everyone – if you are interested, please contact your Fusion-io support representative. I installed new drivers and [...]
Testing Virident FlashMAX 1400
I still continue to run benchmarks of different SSD cards. This time I show numbers for Virident FlashMAX 1400. This is a MLC PCIe SSD device. There are couple notes on these results. First, this time I use a different server. For this benchmark it is Cisco UCS C250, while for previous results I used [...]
Testing Fusion-io ioDrive
Following my series of posts on testing different SSD, in my last post I mentioned that SATA SSD performance is getting closer to PCIe cards. It really makes sense to test it under MySQL workload, but before getting to that, let me review the same workload on Fusion-io ioDrive PCIe card. This is yet previous [...]
Testing Intel SSD 520
Following my previous benchmarks of SATA SSD cards I got Intel SSD 520 240GB into my hands. In this post I show the results of raw IO performance of this card.

