From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932178AbYJKRt4 (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:49:56 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932179AbYJKRtj (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:49:39 -0400 Received: from pasmtpb.tele.dk ([80.160.77.98]:56846 "EHLO pasmtpB.tele.dk" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932177AbYJKRti (ORCPT ); Sat, 11 Oct 2008 13:49:38 -0400 Date: Sat, 11 Oct 2008 19:48:59 +0200 From: Jens Axboe To: Arjan van de Ven Cc: James Bottomley , Alan Cox , Linux Kernel Mailing List , linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, torvalds@osdl.org Subject: Re: libata: set queue SSD flag for SSD devices Message-ID: <20081011174859.GV19428@kernel.dk> References: <200810101904.m9AJ42Gq018897@hera.kernel.org> <20081010202515.446857cc@lxorguk.ukuu.org.uk> <20081010200528.GJ19428@kernel.dk> <20081010175508.3d1ed2a4@infradead.org> <1223710417.4159.11.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20081011140600.GR19428@kernel.dk> <1223739853.4159.17.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20081011090407.6de9b8b4@infradead.org> <1223743124.4159.27.camel@localhost.localdomain> <20081011094930.3cf55ea5@infradead.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20081011094930.3cf55ea5@infradead.org> Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org List-ID: X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Sat, Oct 11 2008, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 18:38:44 +0200 > James Bottomley wrote: > > > On Sat, 2008-10-11 at 09:04 -0700, Arjan van de Ven wrote: > > > On Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:44:13 +0200 > > > James Bottomley wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > So we need something a bit more involved, but not too complex. A > > > > > fine line... > > > > > > > > It's a policy ... just let userspace do it so the user can tune > > > > it. That's what EMC does now (except I think they key of inquiry > > > > strings rather than cache size). > > > > > > > > > while the chosen elevator obviously is policy, the kernel really > > > should pick a sensible default based on what it knows. > > > Lets put it this way: if userland needs to do a tuning to the kernel > > > based on data only provided by the kernel, and will always do it the > > > same way, we should have made that choice the default policy in the > > > kernel in the first place. > > > > Well, this is a bit of a nasty layering problem. We certainly don't > > want the Block layer to know how to poke at SATA, SCSI and other > > esoteric media to see what elevator should be the default, so we'd > > have to craft a new block API that the lower subsystems would > > implement for this. I'm really not sure it's worth the trouble when > > the boot system can do it simply from userspace, but I'll defer to > > Jens. > > > > these devices already give the elevator layer information about the > device, like optimal/max io size etc. > having the elevator take a "don't bother optimizing for seeks" flag > is very much along the same lines, it's a device property that the > elevator needs to learn about in order to send the right kinds of IO > down. Completely agree. And this is very different from the 'choose elevator based on device properties', a way of thinking that I don't agree with. This 'non rotational' flag does just that, passes down more information to the IO scheduler so it can make more informed choices. -- Jens Axboe