Finding throuput of CPU and Hardrive on Solaris

How do i find the throughput of a CPU and the Hardisk on an open solaris machine. Using MPstat or iostat.

I'm having a hard time identifying the throughput if it is given at all in the commands output. Eg. in mpstat there is very little explanation as to what the columns mean

http://docs.sun.com/app/docs/doc/816-5166/mpstat-1m?l=en&a=view&q=syscl+mpstat

I've been using the syscl column divided by time interval to find the throughput but to be honest i have no idea what a system call truelly is.

I'm trying to to analyze a hardrive and CPU while writing a file to the hardisk and when at rest

Thanks in advance. Jim

From serverfault Jim

• To measure disk throughput with iostat, use a command like 'iostat -dxnz 2'

  Every 2 seconds (the 2 in the command) this will give you the number of writes and reads/second and the number of kilobytes written and read for every active disk and tape device in a system. Using the %b (percentage of time the device is busy) figure it is possible to make some extrapolations as to the spare I/O capacity a device has, but remember that changing the character of I/O (e.g. moving from pure read to a mixture of reads & writes) will change the apparent I/O performance of a device dramatically.

  From xenny