I/O performance - async vs TPL vs Dataflow vs RX

Question

I have a piece of C# 5.0 code that generates a ton of network and disk I/O. I need to run multiple copies of this code in parallel. Which of the following technologies is likely to give me the best performance:

• async methods with await

• directly use Task from TPL

• the TPL Dataflow nuget

• Reactive Extensions

I'm not very good at this parallel stuff, but if using a lower lever, like say Thread, can give me a lot better performance I'd consider that too.

Answer 1

Any performance difference between these options would be inconsequential in the face of "a ton of network and disk I/O".

A better question to ask is "which option is easiest to learn and develop with?" Or "which option would be best to maintain this code with five years from now?" And for that I would suggest async first, or Dataflow or Rx if your logic is better represented as a stream.