The RAID/XOR test is easy and seems to apply to basically every kernel I can find/try. Here is the simplified version, for testing.
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk1.dd bs=1024k count=512
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk2.dd bs=1024k count=512
dd if=/dev/zero of=disk3.dd bs=1024k count=512
losetup /dev/loop1 disk1.dd
losetup /dev/loop2 disk2.dd
losetup /dev/loop3 disk3.dd
mdadm --create --level=5 --raid-devices=3 /dev/md0 /dev/loop1 /dev/loop2 /dev/loop3
BOOM!
Yes, initrd gets around the problem. No I did not want to go through the effort of building one. 🙂
Just confirmed the onboard NIC is causing me some major issues. Here is my dumb samba backup copy test file, large 20GB+ data file from windows desktop to EspressoBin, over Gb/s networking, samaba, to old SSD. Same test to X86_64 NAS moves at 112MB/s:
92.4MB/s Intel Pro 1000 CT (I would bet cash I am disk constrained)
65.6MB/s mvneta (on-board)
Please let me know how else I can help.