[PATCH 0/3 v5][RFC] ext3/4: enhance fsync performance when using CFQ

From: Jeff Moyer <jmoyer@redhat.com>
To: axboe@kernel.dk, vgoyal@redhat.com
Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org, linux-ext4@vger.kernel.org
Subject: [PATCH 0/3 v5][RFC] ext3/4: enhance fsync performance when using CFQ
Date: Tue, 22 Jun 2010 17:34:59 -0400	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <1277242502-9047-1-git-send-email-jmoyer@redhat.com> (raw)

Hi,

Running iozone with the fsync flag, or fs_mark, the performance of CFQ is
far worse than that of deadline for enterprise class storage when dealing
with file sizes of 8MB or less.  I used the following command line as a
representative test case:

  fs_mark -S 1 -D 10000 -N 100000 -d /mnt/test/fs_mark -s 65536 -t 1 -w 4096 -F

When run using the deadline I/O scheduler, an average of the first 5 numbers
will give you 448.4 files / second.  CFQ will yield only 106.7.  With
this patch series applied (and the two patches I sent yesterday), CFQ now
achieves 462.5 files / second.

This patch set is still an RFC.  I'd like to make it perform better when
there is a competing sequential reader present.  For now, I've addressed
the concerns voiced about the previous posting.

Review and testing would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Jeff

---

New from the last round:

- removed the think time calculation I added for the sync-noidle service tree
- replaced above with a suggestion from Vivek to only guard against currently
  active sequential readers when determining if we can preempt the sync-noidle
  service tree.
- bug fixes

Over all, I think it's simpler now thanks to the suggestions from Jens and
Vivek.

[PATCH 1/3] block: Implement a blk_yield function to voluntarily give up the I/O scheduler.
[PATCH 2/3] jbd: yield the device queue when waiting for commits
[PATCH 3/3] jbd2: yield the device queue when waiting for journal commits