This is a note to let you know that I've just added the patch titled SCSI: sd: fix array cache flushing bug causing performance problems to the 3.9-stable tree which can be found at: http://www.kernel.org/git/?p=linux/kernel/git/stable/stable-queue.git;a=summary The filename of the patch is: scsi-sd-fix-array-cache-flushing-bug-causing-performance-problems.patch and it can be found in the queue-3.9 subdirectory. If you, or anyone else, feels it should not be added to the stable tree, please let <stable@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> know about it. >From 39c60a0948cc06139e2fbfe084f83cb7e7deae3b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: James Bottomley <JBottomley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:02:53 -0700 Subject: SCSI: sd: fix array cache flushing bug causing performance problems From: James Bottomley <JBottomley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> commit 39c60a0948cc06139e2fbfe084f83cb7e7deae3b upstream. Some arrays synchronize their full non volatile cache when the sd driver sends a SYNCHRONIZE CACHE command. Unfortunately, they can have Terrabytes of this and we send a SYNCHRONIZE CACHE for every barrier if an array reports it has a writeback cache. This leads to massive slowdowns on journalled filesystems. The fix is to allow userspace to turn off the writeback cache setting as a temporary measure (i.e. without doing the MODE SELECT to write it back to the device), so even though the device reported it has a writeback cache, the user, knowing that the cache is non volatile and all they care about is filesystem correctness, can turn that bit off in the kernel and avoid the performance ruinous (and safety irrelevant) SYNCHRONIZE CACHE commands. The way you do this is add a 'temporary' prefix when performing the usual cache setting operations, so echo temporary write through > /sys/class/scsi_disk/<disk>/cache_type Reported-by: Ric Wheeler <rwheeler@xxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: James Bottomley <JBottomley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> --- drivers/scsi/sd.c | 20 ++++++++++++++++++++ drivers/scsi/sd.h | 1 + 2 files changed, 21 insertions(+) --- a/drivers/scsi/sd.c +++ b/drivers/scsi/sd.c @@ -142,6 +142,7 @@ sd_store_cache_type(struct device *dev, char *buffer_data; struct scsi_mode_data data; struct scsi_sense_hdr sshdr; + const char *temp = "temporary "; int len; if (sdp->type != TYPE_DISK) @@ -150,6 +151,13 @@ sd_store_cache_type(struct device *dev, * it's not worth the risk */ return -EINVAL; + if (strncmp(buf, temp, sizeof(temp) - 1) == 0) { + buf += sizeof(temp) - 1; + sdkp->cache_override = 1; + } else { + sdkp->cache_override = 0; + } + for (i = 0; i < ARRAY_SIZE(sd_cache_types); i++) { len = strlen(sd_cache_types[i]); if (strncmp(sd_cache_types[i], buf, len) == 0 && @@ -162,6 +170,13 @@ sd_store_cache_type(struct device *dev, return -EINVAL; rcd = ct & 0x01 ? 1 : 0; wce = ct & 0x02 ? 1 : 0; + + if (sdkp->cache_override) { + sdkp->WCE = wce; + sdkp->RCD = rcd; + return count; + } + if (scsi_mode_sense(sdp, 0x08, 8, buffer, sizeof(buffer), SD_TIMEOUT, SD_MAX_RETRIES, &data, NULL)) return -EINVAL; @@ -2319,6 +2334,10 @@ sd_read_cache_type(struct scsi_disk *sdk int old_rcd = sdkp->RCD; int old_dpofua = sdkp->DPOFUA; + + if (sdkp->cache_override) + return; + first_len = 4; if (sdp->skip_ms_page_8) { if (sdp->type == TYPE_RBC) @@ -2812,6 +2831,7 @@ static void sd_probe_async(void *data, a sdkp->capacity = 0; sdkp->media_present = 1; sdkp->write_prot = 0; + sdkp->cache_override = 0; sdkp->WCE = 0; sdkp->RCD = 0; sdkp->ATO = 0; --- a/drivers/scsi/sd.h +++ b/drivers/scsi/sd.h @@ -73,6 +73,7 @@ struct scsi_disk { u8 protection_type;/* Data Integrity Field */ u8 provisioning_mode; unsigned ATO : 1; /* state of disk ATO bit */ + unsigned cache_override : 1; /* temp override of WCE,RCD */ unsigned WCE : 1; /* state of disk WCE bit */ unsigned RCD : 1; /* state of disk RCD bit, unused */ unsigned DPOFUA : 1; /* state of disk DPOFUA bit */ Patches currently in stable-queue which might be from JBottomley@xxxxxxxxxxxxx are queue-3.9/scsi-sd-fix-array-cache-flushing-bug-causing-performance-problems.patch -- To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe stable" in the body of a message to majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html