Linux Storage Benchmarking Script (SBCs, PCs and all Linux devices)

Now supports PCs and other SBCs!

Announcement is available here: https://jamesachambers.com/benchmark-storage-performance-on-linux/

Overview

Storage benchmarking script featuring a storage benchmark with a heavy emphasis on random read/write performance (essential for OS / application). This is far more accurate of a representation of actual performance than simply simulating writing a large file.

Anonymously uploads your score to pibenchmarks.com for the purposes of making real, meaningful performance comparisons between the different storage devices themselves as well as the platforms they are being used on (PC vs Raspberry Pi vs cloud storage vs others).

You can optionally supply a username which is used as a sort of tracking tag where you can easily see all benchmarks you've ever taken across all devices!

View Results

View current benchmarks, discussion and analysis at: https://jamesachambers.com/2020s-fastest-raspberry-pi-4-storage-sd-ssd-benchmarks/
View the full results at: https://pibenchmarks.com/

Running the Benchmark

To run the benchmark type/paste:

sudo curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh | sudo bash

If you want to choose which drive to test you can also use:

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/TheRemote/PiBenchmarks/master/Storage.sh

chmod +x Storage.sh

sudo ./Storage.sh /path/to/storage

Removing Installed Packages

Most of the packages the script installs are core system packages most of which should already be present. There are a couple benchmarking-only related ones that should be safe to remove if you want an absolute minimalist system.

If you want to remove the packages the script installed afterward you may do:

sudo apt remove iozone3 fio

These are iozone and fio which are both benchmarking utilities and should be safe to use unless you have something else installed that relies on them as a dependency (probably not likely but possible so make sure before removing packages).

Buy A Coffee / Donate

People have expressed some interest in this (you are all saints, thank you, truly)

PayPal: [email protected]
Venmo: @JamesAChambers
CashApp: $theremote
Bitcoin (BTC): 3H6wkPnL1Kvne7dJQS8h7wB4vndB9KxZP7

Update History

November 26th 2023

Added export LC_ALL=C to top of script to prevent language related issues on some systems
Fix null bytes breaking test_nvme
Fixed display issue with DD and HDParm tests showing the wrong units on very slow or very fast machines

January 1st 2023

Increase DD write test to 130k blocks for increased NVMe accuracy

August 21st 2022

Fix minor path errors on Orange Pi

August 14th 2022

Fix parsing inside Docker (thanks mhaas, issue #24
Add udev to dependencies (thanks mhaas, issue #25

August 13th 2022

Fixed findmnt failing when target is not a mountpoint (thanks mhaas, issue #23

June 27th 2022

Fixed udevadm giving a message that option 'w' was missing on some versions -- now runs a fallback test without that option

June 24th 2022

PC results now show in "Latest" and a "Top PC Scores" section has been added!
Reduce argument sizes to prevent curl upload error
Fixed curl "argument list too long" error
Fixed sdparm test overlapping with smartctl test

June 1st 2022

Improve apt dependency installation -- won't run apt-update if all dependencies are present to save time

May 28th 2022

Remove RAM column if it's not being used (it's not used on the Pi 4 and higher as the speed is fixed)
Clean up garbled mess output from curl when submitted to website
Remove clutter and useless output from IOZone test to show more data and less fluff

May 11th 2022

Added 20 second timeout to udevadm test to prevent it from getting stuck forever in rare cases on some boards (thanks munecito issue #22)/li>
Removed vendor field parsing

May 10th 2022

Added some additional messages to help with debugging

April 29th 2022

Added a couple more Gigabyte SBCs
Added 4 Shuttle models that had benchmarks submitted for them -- marketed as the "smallest PC in the world"

April 28th 2022

Added additional System Boards to PiBenchmarks.com System Boards and README
System boards for PC and other types of devices like laptops, desktops, etc. are starting to be added quietly in the background
PC results won't show on the "Latest" tab yet but you can find models that have already been done by searching for something like "Dell" or "HP" and you'll see System Boards that are being added from those manufacturers

April 26th 2022

Removed "Vendor" field from submitted fields as it is no longer used for parsing

April 22nd 2022

Added list of additional supported models (see bottom of README)

April 16th 2022

Added support for other SBCs similar to the Pi such as ODROID, Banana Pi, Pine64, Radxa Rock Pi, Tinker Board, OrangePi, NVIDIA Jetson Nano and more
These models were chosen based on the fact that people had already submitted benchmarks with them. I will add others if people benchmark on those devices as well!
Full list of models available here

April 10th 2022

Added instructions to remove packages the script uses that should be safe

March 20th 2022

Added pre-run requirement check for lsblk and fio to be installed (tries automatically but if you are on an unusual distro you may need to manually install them)
Fixed an issue where DD write wasn't being read correctly from computers using Japanese

March 17th 2022

Fixed an issue with btrfs that would add the characters [/@] at the end of the detected drive (about 19 tests impacted)

August 4th 2021

Removed Ubuntu PPA as it doesn't support focal and is no longer necessary as libraspberrypi-bin is available in the repositories now that the Pi is "officially supported" on Ubuntu
If you ran the storage script on a focal release and your apt is returning an error complaining about this you can remove the PPA with:
```
sudo add-apt-repository -r ppa:ubuntu-raspi2/ppa
```
This has been fixed on the live version and is no longer added to the apt list.

May 29th 2021

Added some additional status messages to make it more clear what the script is doing at any given time
Added --no-install-recommends to most apt package installers to cut down on time running on a new system and unnecessary packages
Moved upload URL to the new pibenchmarks.com domain

May 21st 2021

Added dependency for libxml-dumper-perl to fix inxi on some platforms (thanks DMC!)

May 9th 2021

Moved project frontend to pibenchmarks.com domain name

February 24th 2020

Added xxd dependency (thanks vszakats)
Added option to choose which drive/folder to test (thanks hvdwolf)

January 6th 2020

Launched early beta of https://pibenchmarks.com/ results browser
Fixed an issue where dmesg was giving too much output resulting in "argument list too long" error that prevented results from submitting (thanks winkelement)

December 22nd 2019

Added new smartctl test to help identify drives on USB adapters that don't support hdparm
Improved the hwinfo test to provide better drive identifying information

December 21st 2019

Added new NVME test to help better identify NVME drives
Double quoted variables to ensure maximum compatibility across distros

December 2nd 2019

Merged pull request from pschmitt improving the test dramatically on Arch Linux (thanks!)
Fixed issue where dmesg test could contain characters that could break the test
Removed all instances of "N/A" in favor of leaving the field blank and saving thousands of unneccessary bytes

November 24th 2019

Added SSD adapter detection
Added dmesg test in order to detect applied storage quirks
Speed increases to dependency detection

November 22nd 2019

Parted out some tests into separate variables -- cleaning up code/tests for upcoming system improvements

July 24th 2019

Further improved SSD drive detection

July 8th 2019

Improved drive detection for SSDs going through adapters
Added detection of SSD adapters being used
Improved Micro SD card type detection

July 5th 2019

Further improved rootfs device and size detection
Improved portability with non-Raspbian platforms
Improved hdparm detection

June 30th 2019

Improved rootfs device detection

June 27th 2019

MMC storage is now correctly identified
Improved CPU/core/memory clock detection in older Pis
Improved Arch Linux support
Improved system architecture detection
Added several new SD and MMC manufacturers
Fixed a portability with parsing dd test output

June 26th 2019

Improved USB Flash drive detection
Added Platinum manufacturer identification

June 22nd 2019

Added Hama manufacturer identification

May 25th 2019

Improved HDD and SSD identification including form factor, speed, size and class
Added Lexar as SD manufacturer 0x00009e

May 4th 2019

Added Sony as SD manufacturer 0x00009c

April 27th 2019

Added cross platform CPU frequency detection to use if vcgencmd is not present
Improved boot drive detection
Added fallback for SD drivers that don't populate the udevadm information
Added check to prevent installing iozone if it is already present on system

April 16th 2019

Added "Team Group" as SD vendor (code -B, 0x000045)
Added Maxell MicroSD vendor (code TI)
Added fix to get gpu_freq on older Raspberry Pis that don't have core_freq

March 30th 2019

Added x86_64 and x86 support

March 29th 2019

Added Transcend to known vendors
Eliminated wget dependency (uses pure curl for everything)
Attempt to use native iozone package if available, otherwise build

March 18th 2019

Added Arch Linux support

March 17th 2019

Added Ubuntu support

March 16th 2019

Initial release

TheRemote/PiBenchmarks

TheRemote

Reviews

Repository Details