Hi,
On 12-05-19 22:59, Uenal Mutlu wrote:
Increasing the SATA/AHCI DMA TX/RX FIFOs (P0DMACR.TXTS and .RXTS, ie.
TX_TRANSACTION_SIZE and RX_TRANSACTION_SIZE) from default 0x0 each
to 0x3 each, gives a write performance boost of 120 MiB/s to 132 MiB/s
from lame 36 MiB/s to 45 MiB/s previously.
Read performance is about 200 MiB/s.
[tested on SSD using dd bs=2K/4K/8K/12K/16K/24K/32K: peak-perf at 12K].
Tested on the Banana Pi R1 (aka Lamobo R1) and Banana Pi M1 SBCs
with Allwinner A20 32bit-SoCs (ARMv7-a / arm-linux-gnueabihf).
These devices are RaspberryPi-like small devices.
This problem of slow SATA write-speed with these small devices lasts now
for more than 5 years. Many commentators throughout the years wrongly
assumed the slow write speed was a hardware limitation. This patch finally
solves the problem, which in fact was just a hard-to-fix software problem
(b/c of lack of documentation by the SoC-maker Allwinner Technology).
RFC: Since more than about 25 similar SBC/SoC models do use the
ahci_sunxi driver, users are encouraged to test it on all the
affected boards and give feedback
The SATA controller on these boards is inside the A10/A20 SoC, the
A10 and A20 use the same controller, so it is the same on all the boards.
IOW I don't see this only being tested on 1 board as a reason for the patch
to be RFC.
Lists of the affected sunxi and other boards and SoCs with SATA using
the ahci_sunxi driver:
$ grep -i -e "^&ahci" arch/arm/boot/dts/sun*dts
and http://linux-sunxi.org/SATA#Devices_with_SATA_ports
See also http://linux-sunxi.org/Category:Devices_with_SATA_port
Patch v2:
- Commented the patch in-place in ahci_sunxi.c
- With bs=12K and no conv=... passed to dd, the write performance
rises further to 132 MiB/s
- Changed MB/s to MiB/s
- Posted the story behind the patch:
http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/1905.1/03506.html
- Posted a dd test script to find optimal bs, and some results:
https://bit.ly/2YoOzEM
Patch v1:
- States bs=4K for dd and a write performance of 120 MiB/s
Signed-off-by: Uenal Mutlu <um@xxxxxxxxxxx>
---
drivers/ata/ahci_sunxi.c | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 45 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
diff --git a/drivers/ata/ahci_sunxi.c b/drivers/ata/ahci_sunxi.c
index 911710643305..ed19f19808c5 100644
--- a/drivers/ata/ahci_sunxi.c
+++ b/drivers/ata/ahci_sunxi.c
@@ -157,8 +157,51 @@ static void ahci_sunxi_start_engine(struct ata_port *ap)
void __iomem *port_mmio = ahci_port_base(ap);
struct ahci_host_priv *hpriv = ap->host->private_data;
- /* Setup DMA before DMA start */
- sunxi_clrsetbits(hpriv->mmio + AHCI_P0DMACR, 0x0000ff00, 0x00004400);
+ /* Setup DMA before DMA start
+ *
+ * NOTE: A similar SoC with SATA/AHCI by Texas Instruments documents
+ * this Vendor Specific Port (P0DMACR, aka PxDMACR) in its
+ * User's Guide document (TMS320C674x/OMAP-L1x Processor
+ * Serial ATA (SATA) Controller, Literature Number: SPRUGJ8C,
+ * March 2011, Chapter 4.33 Port DMA Control Register (P0DMACR),
+ * p.68, https://www.ti.com/lit/ug/sprugj8c/sprugj8c.pdf)
+ * as equivalent to the following struct:
+ *
+ * struct AHCI_P0DMACR_t
+ * {
+ * unsigned TXTS : 4,
+ * RXTS : 4,
+ * TXABL : 4,
+ * RXABL : 4,
+ * Reserved : 16;
+ * };
+ *
+ * TXTS: Transmit Transaction Size (TX_TRANSACTION_SIZE).
+ * This field defines the DMA transaction size in DWORDs for
+ * transmit (system bus read, device write) operation. [...]
+ *
+ * RXTS: Receive Transaction Size (RX_TRANSACTION_SIZE).
+ * This field defines the Port DMA transaction size in DWORDs
+ * for receive (system bus write, device read) operation. [...]
+ *
+ * TXABL: Transmit Burst Limit.
+ * This field allows software to limit the VBUSP master read
+ * burst size. [...]
+ *
+ * RXABL: Receive Burst Limit.
+ * Allows software to limit the VBUSP master write burst
+ * size. [...]
+ *
+ * Reserved: Reserved.
+ *
+ *
+ * NOTE: According to the above document, the following alternative
+ * to the code below could perhaps be a better option
+ * (or preparation) for possible further improvements later:
+ * sunxi_clrsetbits(hpriv->mmio + AHCI_P0DMACR, 0x0000ffff,
+ * 0x00000033);
+ */
+ sunxi_clrsetbits(hpriv->mmio + AHCI_P0DMACR, 0x0000ffff, 0x00004433);
Have you tried / benchmarked the 0x00000033 option?
Regards,
Hans
