On Fri, 2011-01-28 at 10:42 +0800, BingJiun Luo wrote: > On Thu, Jan 27, 2011 at 10:43 PM, James Bottomley > <James.Bottomley@xxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Thu, 2011-01-27 at 22:04 +0800, BingJiun Luo wrote: > >> I want to measure SATA AHCI Host controller read performance. Open > >> /dev/sda and using read(int fildes, void *buf, size_t nbyte) user space > >> function to read 2048 times, each time 64KByets, and total 128 Mbytes. > >> > >> I measured the time start from one step before write CI register inside > >> ahci_qc_issue() function until ahci_port_intr () is called in the interrupt > >> context. It takes about 1 milliseconds to complete one 256KBytes READ > >> DMA EXT command, and spend about 15 microseconds call to scsi_done(). > >> > >> However, why scsi_request_fn is called about after 4 milliseconds > >> to pass next IO request for Hardware to issue? It take less if the READ > >> DMA command with less number of sectors. > > > > I'm not sure I parse the question, but I think you're asking why we > > chain the next issue from the softirq in SCSI? That's because most SCSI > > devices are tagged and the bus is the bottleneck, so after processing > > the completion, we need to get the next command out ASAP to keep the bus > > utilised to capacity. > > I observed that each time scsi_request_fn is called, scsi_dispatch_cmd > is called > only once and then return. It means that only one IO request available to be > processed by Host Contoller. Either you're untagged, or you don't have enough I/O then. > After time passed about 4 milliseconds, scsi_request_fn is called > again. Why it > takes so long time, because the previous command already completed in only about > 1 millisecond, including call to scsi_done(). The host controller is > idle about 3 milliseconds, > has nothing to do. No idea ... it's either something to do with the setup on the architecture or it's simply that the I/O load isn't generating multiple commands. On an x86 it's microseconds to reissue from block softirq. > > > >> My questions are: > >> 1. Is it the time to prepare one 256 KB READ DMA EXT command by upper > >> layer (Block Layer or Virtual File system Layer)? Or, It is the time to copy > >> data from kernel space memory to user space memory after data is read > >> back from Hard Drive and delay the next command pass to SCSI? > > > > Everything in SCSI is done with zero copy (as in we DMA straight to the > > pagecache page, which is then attached to userspace). > > > Yes, I know it is zero copy at SCSI, but I am not sure at upper layer(VFS or > anything else). > > It is unlikely to zero copy between kernel space and user space > memory buffer, right? Because no matter the data read back from disk or already > available inside the page cache, both of them are located at kernel > space memory, It depends. Glibc can play clever tricks where it services read() via mmapped buffers. That's zero copy. > and this data have to be copied into user space address. All of these works are > not done in the SCSI layer, somewhere higher than SCSI, just I don't > know where?. No ... the page can simply be placed into an empty userspace mapping ... that's what we mostly try to do. > >> I know some architecture has not good enough performance to do memcpy > >> or something like that. > >> > >> 2. If I do not mount /dev/sda to any file system, what is the first > >> kernel function > >> called after read() function from user space? Is it located at VFS or > >> directly to > >> Block layer? > > > > I think you need to trace this for yourself ... it's complex because > > read doesn't go to the device, it goes via the page cache, which is also > > how the VFS operates. If the pages are all current in the cache, a > > read() doesn't have to trouble the disk. > > > I am pretty sure almost all READ DMA commands go to the disk, because > I captured them by Catalyst Analyzer. So, if all request must go to disk, does > it means the data not available in the page cache. Yes ... page cache is checked first before fetching from storage. James > >> Because I want to keep track the time spend at the layer higher than SCSI. > >> > >> 3. When scsi_done() is called, what is the function to process this completed > >> command and pass the data to user space? I think there might be somewhere > >> inside the code to copy this data from kernel space memory address to user > >> space memory address. > > > > scsi_done doesn't do anything about completion, it triggers the block > > softirq to schedule a completion for us when all interrupts are > > processed. > > > > James > > > > > > -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-ide" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
