diff --git a/examples/run_benchmarks.py b/examples/run_benchmarks.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..53a3846bc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/run_benchmarks.py
@@ -0,0 +1,186 @@
+import sys
+import os
+import resource
+import shutil
+import shlex
+import time
+import subprocess
+import random
+
+# this is a disk I/O benchmark script. It runs menchmarks
+# over different filesystems, different cache sizes and
+# different number of peers (can be used to find a reasonable
+# range for unchoke slots).
+
+# it also measures performance improvements of re-ordering
+# read requests based on physical location and OS hints
+# like posix_fadvice(FADV_WILLNEED). It can also be used
+# for the AIO branch to measure improvements over the
+# classic thread based disk I/O
+
+# to set up the test, build the example directoryin release
+# with statistics=on and copy fragmentation_test, client_test
+# and connection_tester to the current directory.
+# make sure gnuplot is installed.
+
+# the following lists define the space tests will be run in
+
+# variables to test. All these are run on the first
+# entry in the filesystem list.
+cache_sizes = [0, 256, 512, 1024, 2048, 4096, 8192]
+peers = [10, 100, 500, 1000, 2000]
+
+# the drives are assumed to be mounted under ./<name>
+# or have symbolic links to them.
+filesystem = ['ext4', 'ext3', 'reiser', 'xfs']
+
+# the number of peers for the filesystem test. The
+# idea is to stress test the filesystem by using a lot
+# of peers, since each peer essentially is a separate
+# read location on the platter
+filesystem_peers = 1000
+
+# the amount of cache for the filesystem test
+filesystem_cache = 8192
+
+# the number of seconds to run each test. It's important that
+# this is shorter than what it takes to finish downloading
+# the test torrent, since then the average rate will not
+# be representative of the peak anymore
+test_duration = 400
+
+
+
+# make sure the environment is properly set up
+if resource.getrlimit(resource.RLIMIT_NOFILE)[0] < 4000:
+	print 'please set ulimit -n to at least 4000'
+	sys.exit(1)
+
+# make sure we have all the binaries available
+binaries = ['client_test', 'connection_tester', 'fragmentation_test']
+for i in binaries:
+	if not os.path.exists(i):
+		print 'make sure "%s" is available in current working directory' % i
+		sys.exit(1)
+
+for i in filesystem:
+	if not os.path.exists(i):
+		print ('the path "%s" does not exist. This is directory/mountpoint is ' +
+			'used as the download directory and is the filesystem that will be benchmarked ' +
+			'and need to exist.') % i
+		sys.exit(1)
+
+# make sure we have a test torrent
+if not os.path.exists('test.torrent'):
+	print 'generating test torrent'
+	os.system('./connection_tester gen-torrent test.torrent')
+
+# use a new port for each test to make sure they keep working
+# this port is incremented for each test run
+port = 10000 + random.randint(0, 5000)
+
+def build_commandline(config, port):
+	num_peers = config['num-peers']
+	no_disk_reorder = '';
+	if config['allow-disk-reorder'] == False:
+		no_disk_reorder = '-O'
+	no_read_ahead = ''
+	if config['read-ahead'] == False:
+		no_read_ahead = '-j'
+		
+	global test_duration
+
+	return './client_test -k -z -N -h -H -M -S %d -T %d -c %d -C %d -s "%s" %s %s -q %d -p %d -l session_stats/alerts_log.txt test.torrent' \
+		% (num_peers, num_peers, num_peers, config['cache-size'], config['save-path'] \
+			, no_disk_reorder, no_read_ahead, test_duration, port)
+
+def delete_files(files):
+	for i in files:
+		try: os.remove(i)
+		except:
+			try: shutil.rmtree(i)
+			except: pass
+
+def build_test_config(fs, num_peers, cache_size, readahead=True, reorder=True):
+	config = {'test': 'dual', 'save-path': os.path.join('./', fs), 'num-peers': num_peers, 'allow-disk-reorder': reorder, 'cache-size': cache_size, 'read-ahead': readahead}
+	return config
+
+def build_target_folder(config):
+	reorder = 'reorder'
+	if config['allow-disk-reorder'] == False: reorder = 'no-reorder'
+	readahead = 'readahead'
+	if config['read-ahead'] == False: readahead = 'no-readahead'
+
+	return 'results_%d_%d_%s_%s_%s_%s' % (config['num-peers'], config['cache-size'], os.path.split(config['save-path'])[1], config['test'], reorder, readahead)
+
+def run_test(config):
+
+	if os.path.exists(build_target_folder(config)):
+		print 'results already exists, skipping test'
+		return
+
+	# make sure any previous test file is removed
+	delete_files([os.path.join(config['save-path'], 'stress_test_file'), '.ses_state', '.resume', '.dht_state', 'session_stats'])
+
+	try: os.mkdir('session_stats')
+	except: pass
+
+	# save off the command line for reference
+	global port
+	cmdline = build_commandline(config, port)
+	f = open('session_stats/cmdline.txt', 'w+')
+	f.write(cmdline)
+	f.close()
+
+	f = open('session_stats/config.txt', 'w+')
+	print >>f, config
+	f.close()
+
+	f = open('session_stats/client.output', 'w+')
+	print 'launching: %s' % cmdline
+	client = subprocess.Popen(shlex.split(cmdline), stdout=f)
+	time.sleep(1)
+	print '\n\n*********************************'
+	print '*          RUNNING TEST         *'
+	print '*********************************\n\n'
+	print 'launching connection tester'
+	os.system('./connection_tester %s %d 127.0.0.1 %d test.torrent >session_stats/tester.output' % (config['test'], config['num-peers'], port))
+	
+	f.close()
+
+	# run fragmentation test
+	print 'analyzing fragmentation'
+	os.system('./fragmentation_test test.torrent %s' % config['save-path'])
+	shutil.copy('fragmentation.log', 'session_stats/')
+	shutil.copy('fragmentation.png', 'session_stats/')
+	shutil.copy('fragmentation.gnuplot', 'session_stats/')
+
+	os.chdir('session_stats')
+
+	# parse session stats
+	print 'parsing session log'
+	os.system('python ../../parse_session_stats.py *.0000.log')
+
+	os.chdir('..')
+
+	# move the results into its final place
+	print 'saving results'
+	os.rename('session_stats', build_target_folder(config))
+
+	# clean up
+	print 'cleaning up'
+	delete_files([os.path.join(config['save-path'], 'stress_test_file'), '.ses_state', '.resume', '.dht_state'])
+
+	port += 1
+
+for fs in filesystem:
+	config = build_test_config(fs, filesystem_peers, filesystem_cache)
+	run_test(config)
+
+for c in cache_sizes:
+	for p in peers:
+		for rdahead in [True, False]:
+			for reorder in [True, False]:
+				config = build_test_config(fs, filesystem_peers, filesystem_cache, rdahead, reorder)
+				run_test(config)
+