Re: [git patches] IDE update

[Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de>]

On Fri, Jul 08 2005, Steven Pratt wrote:
> Jens Axboe wrote:
> 
> >On Fri, Jul 08 2005, Andrew Morton wrote:
> > 
> >
> >>Jens Axboe <axboe@suse.de> wrote:
> >>   
> >>
> >>>Some more investigation - it appears to be broken read-ahead, actually.
> >>>hdparm does repeated read(), lseek() loops which causes the read-ahead
> >>>logic to mark the file as being in cache (since it reads the same chunk
> >>>every time). Killing the INCACHE check (attached) makes it work fine for
> >>>me, Grant can you test if it "fixes" it for you as well?
> >>>
> >>>No ideas how to fix the read-ahead logic right now, I pondered some
> >>>depedency on sequential but I don't see how it can work correctly for
> >>>other cases. Perhaps handle_ra_miss() just isn't being called
> >>>appropriately everywhere?
> >>>
> >>>--- mm/readahead.c~	2005-07-08 11:16:14.000000000 +0200
> >>>+++ mm/readahead.c	2005-07-08 11:17:49.000000000 +0200
> >>>@@ -351,7 +351,9 @@
> >>> 		ra->cache_hit += nr_to_read;
> >>> 		if (ra->cache_hit >= VM_MAX_CACHE_HIT) {
> >>> 			ra_off(ra);
> >>>+#if 0
> >>> 			ra->flags |= RA_FLAG_INCACHE;
> >>>+#endif
> >>> 			return 0;
> >>> 		}
> >>> 	} else {
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>Interesting.  We should be turning that back off in handle_ra_miss() as
> >>soon as hdparm seeks away.  I'd be suspecting that we're not correctly
> >>undoing the resutls of ra_off() within handle_ra_miss(), except you didn't
> >>comment that bit out.
> >>
> >>Or the readahead code is working as intended, and hdparm is doing 
> >>something
> >>really weird which trips it up.
> >>
> >>hdparm should also be misbehaving when run against a regular file, but it
> >>looks like hdparm would need some alterations to test that.
> >>   
> >>
> >
> >Just use the test app I posted, it shows the problem just fine. If I use
> >a regular file, behaviour is identical as expected (ie equally broken
> >:-).
> >
> >bart:/data1 # ./read_disk ./test 1
> >Mem Throughput: 101 MiB/sec
> >Mem Throughput: 103 MiB/sec
> >Disk Throughput: 22 MiB/sec
> >
> >bart:/data1 # ./read_disk ./test
> >Disk Throughput: 29 MiB/sec
> > 
> >
> 
> I don't see how this is broken.  The INCACHE flag should be cleared on 
> the first miss.  We will start up I/O slightly slower in this case since 
> it is not 1st IO, but within about 5 or 6 reads we should be back to 
> normal max_readahead behavior.  This is what I see on my old laptop.

I'm telling you what I see happening, I'm not guessing or telling you
what the code does or doesn't do. The fact is that commenting out the
INCACHE flag makes it run as fast as it should.

> patches:/home/slpratt # ./readdisk /dev/hda
> Disk Throughput: 16 MiB/sec
> patches:/home/slpratt # ./readdisk /dev/hda 1
> Mem Throughput: 145 MiB/sec
> Mem Throughput: 153 MiB/sec
> Disk Throughput: 16 MiB/sec

Perhaps try it on a file, or whatever it takes to reproduce?

> Can you post iostat -x output from your runs.  Are we doing the right 
> sized IO?

Sure, but not until two weeks from now, going on vacation very shortly.
You can work with the other people who see this bug meanwhile :)

-- 
Jens Axboe

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