[Lustre-discuss] HW RAID - fragmented I/O

Kevin Van Maren kevin.van.maren at oracle.com
Wed Jun 8 09:30:08 PDT 2011


Yep, with 1.8.5 the problem is most likely in the (mpt2sas) driver, not 
in the rest of the kernel.  Driver limits are not normally noticed by 
(non-Lustre) people, because the default kernel limits IO to 512KB.

May want to see Bug 22850 for the changes required eg, for the 
Emulex/lpfc driver.

Glancing at the stock RHEL5 kernel, it looks like the issue is 
MPT2SAS_SG_DEPTH, which is limited to 128.  This appears to be set to 
match the default kernel limit, but it is possible there is also a 
driver/HW limit.  You should be able to increase that to 256 and see if 
it works...


Also note that the size buckets are power-of-2, so a "1MB" entry is any 
IO > 512KB and <= 1MB.

If you can't get the driver to reliably do full 1MB IOs, change to a 
64KB chunk and set max_sectors_kb to 512.  This will help ensure you get 
aligned, full-stripe writes.

Kevin


Wojciech Turek wrote:
> I am setting up a new lustre filesystem using LSI engenio based disk
> enclosures with integrated dual RAID controllers. I configured disks
> into 8+2 RAID6 groups using 128kb segment size (chunk size). This
> hardware uses mpt2sas kernel module on the Linux host side. I use the
> whole block device for an OST (to avoid any alignment issues). When
> running sgpdd-survey I can see high through numbers (~3GB/s write,
> 5GB/s read), Also controllers stats show that number of IOPS = number
> of MB/s. However as soon as I put ldiskfs on the OSTs, obdfilter shows
> slower results (~2GB/s write , ~2GB/s read ) and controller stats show
> more then double IOPS than MB/s. Looking at output from iostat -m -x 1
> and brw_stats I can see that a large number of I/O operations are
> smaller than 1MB, mostly 512kb.  I know that there was some work done
> on optimising the kernel block device layer to process 1MB I/O
> requests and that those changes were committed to Lustre 1.8.5. Thus I
> guess this I/O chopping happens below the Lustre stack, maybe in the
> mpt2sas driver?
>
> I am hoping that someone in Lustre community can shed some light on to
> my problem.
>
> In my setup I  use:
> Lustre 1.8.5
> CentOS-5.5
>
> Some parameters I tuned from defaults in CentOS:
> deadline I/O scheduler
>
> max_hw_sectors_kb=4096
> max_sectors_kb=1024
>
>
> brw_stats output
> --
>
> find /proc/fs/lustre/obdfilter/ -name "testfs-OST*" | while read ost;
> do cat $ost/brw_stats ; done | grep "disk I/O size" -A9
>
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    206   0   0   |  521   0   0
> 8K:                    224   0   0   |  595   0   1
> 16K:                   105   0   1   |  479   0   1
> 32K:                   140   0   1   | 1108   1   3
> 64K:                   231   0   1   | 1470   1   4
> 128K:                  536   1   2   | 2259   2   7
> 256K:                 1762   3   6   | 5644   6  14
> 512K:                31574  64  71   | 30431  35  50
> 1M:                  14200  28 100   | 42143  49 100
> --
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    187   0   0   |  457   0   0
> 8K:                    244   0   0   |  598   0   1
> 16K:                   109   0   1   |  481   0   1
> 32K:                   129   0   1   | 1100   1   3
> 64K:                   222   0   1   | 1408   1   4
> 128K:                  514   1   2   | 2291   2   7
> 256K:                 1718   3   6   | 5652   6  14
> 512K:                32222  65  72   | 29810  35  49
> 1M:                  13654  27 100   | 42202  50 100
> --
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    196   0   0   |  551   0   0
> 8K:                    206   0   0   |  551   0   1
> 16K:                    79   0   0   |  513   0   1
> 32K:                   136   0   1   | 1048   1   3
> 64K:                   232   0   1   | 1278   1   4
> 128K:                  540   1   2   | 2172   2   7
> 256K:                 1681   3   6   | 5679   6  13
> 512K:                31842  64  71   | 31705  37  51
> 1M:                  14077  28 100   | 41789  48 100
> --
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    190   0   0   |  486   0   0
> 8K:                    200   0   0   |  547   0   1
> 16K:                    93   0   0   |  448   0   1
> 32K:                   141   0   1   | 1029   1   3
> 64K:                   240   0   1   | 1283   1   4
> 128K:                  558   1   2   | 2125   2   7
> 256K:                 1716   3   6   | 5400   6  13
> 512K:                31476  64  70   | 29029  35  48
> 1M:                  14366  29 100   | 42454  51 100
> --
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    209   0   0   |  511   0   0
> 8K:                    195   0   0   |  621   0   1
> 16K:                    79   0   0   |  558   0   1
> 32K:                   134   0   1   | 1135   1   3
> 64K:                   245   0   1   | 1390   1   4
> 128K:                  509   1   2   | 2219   2   7
> 256K:                 1715   3   6   | 5687   6  14
> 512K:                31784  64  71   | 31172  36  50
> 1M:                  14112  28 100   | 41719  49 100
> --
> disk I/O size          ios   % cum % |  ios   % cum %
> 4K:                    201   0   0   |  500   0   0
> 8K:                    241   0   0   |  604   0   1
> 16K:                    82   0   1   |  584   0   1
> 32K:                   130   0   1   | 1092   1   3
> 64K:                   230   0   1   | 1331   1   4
> 128K:                  547   1   2   | 2253   2   7
> 256K:                 1695   3   6   | 5634   6  14
> 512K:                31501  64  70   | 31836  37  51
> 1M:                  14343  29 100   | 41517  48 100
>
>   




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