Re: Where is the performance bottleneck?

[jmerkey <jmerkey@utah-nac.org>]

I'll try this approach as well.  On 2.4.X kernels, I had to change 
nr_requests to achieve performance, but
I noticed it didn't seem to work as well on 2.6.X.  I'll retry the 
change with nr_requests on 2.6.X.

Thanks

Jeff

Tom Callahan wrote:

>>From linux-kernel mailing list.....
>
>Don't do this. BLKDEV_MIN_RQ sets the size of the mempool reserved
>requests and will only get slightly used in low memory conditions, so
>most memory will probably be wasted.....
>
>Change /sys/block/xxx/queue/nr_requests
>
>Tom Callahan
>TESSCO Technologies
>(443)-506-6216
>callahant@tessco.com
>
>
>
>jmerkey wrote:
>
>  
>
>>I have seen an 80GB/sec limitation in the kernel unless this value is 
>>changed in the SCSI I/O layer
>>for 3Ware and other controllers during testing of 2.6.X series kernels.
>>
>>Change these values in include/linux/blkdev.h and performance goes from 
>>80MB/S to over 670MB/S on the 3Ware controller.
>>
>>
>>//#define BLKDEV_MIN_RQ    4
>>//#define BLKDEV_MAX_RQ    128    /* Default maximum */
>>#define BLKDEV_MIN_RQ    4096
>>#define BLKDEV_MAX_RQ    8192    /* Default maximum */
>>
>>Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>>Jens Axboe wrote:
>>
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>On Wed, Aug 31 2005, Holger Kiehl wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>On Wed, 31 Aug 2005, Jens Axboe wrote:
>>>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>>>Nothing sticks out here either. There's plenty of idle time. It
>>>>>       
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>smells
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>>like a driver issue. Can you try the same dd test, but read from the
>>>>>drives instead? Use a bigger blocksize here, 128 or 256k.
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>I used the following command reading from all 8 disks in parallel:
>>>>
>>>> dd if=/dev/sd?1 of=/dev/null bs=256k count=78125
>>>>
>>>>Here vmstat output (I just cut something out in the middle):
>>>>
>>>>procs -----------memory---------- ---swap-- -----io---- --system-- 
>>>>----cpu----^M
>>>>r  b   swpd   free   buff  cache   si   so    bi    bo   in    cs us
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>sy id 
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>wa^M
>>>>3  7   4348  42640 7799984   9612    0    0 322816     0 3532  4987
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>0 22  
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>0 78
>>>>1  7   4348  42136 7800624   9584    0    0 322176     0 3526  4987
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>0 23  
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>4 74
>>>>0  8   4348  39912 7802648   9668    0    0 322176     0 3525  4955
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>0 22 
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>12 66
>>>>1  7   4348  38912 7803700   9636    0    0 322432     0 3526  5078
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>0 23  
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>Ok, so that's somewhat better than the writes but still off from what
>>>the individual drives can do in total.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>>You might want to try the same with direct io, just to eliminate the
>>>>>costly user copy. I don't expect it to make much of a difference
>>>>>       
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>though,
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>>>feels like the problem is elsewhere (driver, most likely).
>>>>>
>>>>>    
>>>>>
>>>>>       
>>>>>
>>>>>          
>>>>>
>>>>Sorry, I don't know how to do this. Do you mean using a C program
>>>>that sets some flag to do direct io, or how can I do that?
>>>>  
>>>>
>>>>     
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>I've attached a little sample for you, just run ala
>>>
>>># ./oread /dev/sdX
>>>
>>>and it will read 128k chunks direct from that device. Run on the same
>>>drives as above, reply with the vmstat info again.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>-----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>-
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>#include <stdio.h>
>>>#include <stdlib.h>
>>>#define __USE_GNU
>>>#include <fcntl.h>
>>>#include <stdlib.h>
>>>#include <unistd.h>
>>>
>>>#define BS		(131072)
>>>#define ALIGN(buf)	(char *) (((unsigned long) (buf) + 4095) &
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>~(4095))
>> 
>>
>>    
>>
>>>#define BLOCKS		(8192)
>>>
>>>int main(int argc, char *argv[])
>>>{
>>>	char *p;
>>>	int fd, i;
>>>
>>>	if (argc < 2) {
>>>		printf("%s: <dev>\n", argv[0]);
>>>		return 1;
>>>	}
>>>
>>>	fd = open(argv[1], O_RDONLY | O_DIRECT);
>>>	if (fd == -1) {
>>>		perror("open");
>>>		return 1;
>>>	}
>>>
>>>	p = ALIGN(malloc(BS + 4095));
>>>	for (i = 0; i < BLOCKS; i++) {
>>>		int r = read(fd, p, BS);
>>>
>>>		if (r == BS)
>>>			continue;
>>>		else {
>>>			if (r == -1)
>>>				perror("read");
>>>
>>>			break;
>>>		}
>>>	}
>>>
>>>	return 0;
>>>}
>>>
>>>
>>>   
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>-
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>>
>>    
>>
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