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zcav(8)			    System Manager's Manual		       zcav(8)

NAME
       zcav - program to test raw hard drive throughput.

SYNOPSIS
       zcav	 [-b	  block-size[:chunk-size]]	[-c	count]	   [-r
       [first-block]:last-block]      [-w]	[-s	  skip-rate]	   [-u
       uid-to-use:gid-to-use] [-g gid-to-use] [-l log-file] [-f] file-name [-l
       log-file	[-f] file-name]...

DESCRIPTION
       This manual page	documents briefly the zcav, program.

       Modern  hard  drives  have a constant rotational	speed but have varying
       numbers of sectors per track (outside tracks are	longer and  have  more
       sectors).  This	is  referred to	as Zoned Constant Angular Velocity (or
       ZCAV). The outer	tracks will have a higher data transfer	 rate  due  to
       having  more  sectors  per track, these tracks generally	have the lower
       track/sector numbers.

       This program tests the ZCAV performance of a hard drive,	by reading the
       entire data on it a specified number of times. The file name  given  as
       the first parameter, it can be specified	as -, for standard input. This
       file  will  be  opened  as  read-only and in usual operation it will be
       /dev/hdX	or /dev/ide/host0/busX/targetY/lun0/disc depending on  whether
       you  use	 devfs or not (NB operating systems other than Linux will have
       different device	names).

       The output should be able to be easily graphed with  gnuplot  which  is
       what I use to view the results.

OPTIONS
       -b     the  size	 (in  Meg) of the blocks to read/write (default	512M),
	      optionally followed by a ':' and the chunk size  for  read/write
	      operations  (default 1M).	 Note that the chunk size must be less
	      than or equal to the block size and must also  be	 significantly
	      less  than  the  size of the RAM in the machine.	Also note that
	      for the write test there will be a fsync() after	writing	 every
	      chunk.

       -c     the number of times to read/write	the entire disk.

       -r     the  range  of data (in Meg) to read/write on each pass (default
	      the entire device).  Useful if you want to quickly test part  of
	      a	 large	drive.	 If  a single number is	given then that	is the
	      last block to read, if two numbers then it's the start  and  end
	      of  a  range.   Values are in megs, but they are rounded down to
	      the block	size.

       -s     skip rate.  The option -s	10 will	cause it to  read  every  10th
	      block and	skip the rest.	Accepts	values from 2 to 20.

       -f     the file-name for	the input data.	This isn't needed on well con-
	      figured  systems	that have a recent Glibc where you can specify
	      the file name without the	-f flag.

       -u     user-id to use.  When running as root specify the	UID to run the
	      tests as,	it is not recommended to use root, so if you  want  to
	      run  as root use -u root.	 Also if you want to specify the group
	      to run as	then use the user:group	format.	 If you	specify	a user
	      by name but no group then	the primary group of that user will be
	      chosen.  If you specify a	user by	number and no group  then  the
	      group will be nogroup.

       -g     group-id	to  use.   Same	 as using :group for the -u parameter,
	      just a different way to specify it for compatibility with	 other
	      programs.

       -w     write zero blocks	to the disk instead of reading from the	disk -
	      will destroy data!

SEE ALSO
       bonnie++(8)

AUTHOR
       This  program, it's manual page,	and the	Debian package were written by
       Russell Coker <russell@coker.com.au>.

AVAILABILITY
       The source is available from http://www.coker.com.au/bonnie++ .

       See http://etbe.coker.com.au/category/benchmark	for  further  informa-
       tion.

								       zcav(8)

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