OK, 4.20 results aren't stable either: Amean 1 38.35 ( 0.00%) 38.01 ( 0.90%) 39.70 ( -3.52%) 39.47 ( -2.91%) 38.26 ( 0.24%) Amean 2 35.02 ( 0.00%) 31.31 ( 10.61%) 30.80 ( 12.05%) 35.20 ( -0.50%) 34.39 ( 1.81%) Amean 4 42.70 ( 0.00%) 41.81 ( 2.09%) 41.64 ( 2.47%) 37.73 ( 11.63%) 34.50 ( 19.20%) Stddev 1 5.17 ( 0.00%) 5.29 ( -2.22%) 3.36 ( 35.04%) 5.24 ( -1.35%) 5.19 ( -0.23%) Stddev 2 8.41 ( 0.00%) 8.55 ( -1.64%) 8.53 ( -1.47%) 8.31 ( 1.24%) 8.71 ( -3.60%) Stddev 4 6.49 ( 0.00%) 6.54 ( -0.87%) 6.22 ( 4.14%) 7.07 ( -8.97%) 7.63 ( -17.63%) *But* this is with SCSI_MQ driving the disk. I'll try whether the variance won't be lower with the old block layer because upto 4.20 (including), we were using that for SCSI devices AFAIK.