Thanks Barry. Well, I guess it all comes from the fact that I want it all. I wanted to have everything done only once. Data that can be also read in a visualization package. Then I guess I have to stick with my old strategy of having everything stored in binary and using a postprocessor to make hdft or vtk format data files for visualization.
Cheers, Mohamad On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 2:39 PM, Barry Smith <bsmith at mcs.anl.gov> wrote: > > On Jan 31, 2012, at 4:34 PM, Mohamad M. Nasr-Azadani wrote: > > > Hi all, > > > > I was using VecView() to write the data to file (a vector of total size > 50*20*10 (3D DMDA)). > > I compared the times for two cases: PETSc's binary and also HDF5. > > I get an enormous difference between the times I get for these two cases > (this test is done using only one processor) > > > > HDF5: 16.2 (sec) > > Binary: 0.33 (sec). > > > > I am using HDF5 VecView() as a magic black box writer to dump the field > quantities. And I am not an expert on it but this order of magnitude seems > a bit strange to me. > > I am not surprised at all. Just because HDF5 is a "defacto standard" > and "supposedly" a good thing to use doesn't mean it will be faster than > something else. > > I would only use HDF5 when the resulting file needs to be HDF5 for some > other software, like visualization. If you are just using the file with > PETSc then use PETSc's binary. > > Barry > > > > > > Any inputs are appreciated! > > Best, > > Mohamad > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.mcs.anl.gov/pipermail/petsc-users/attachments/20120131/434519a0/attachment.htm>
