On 2018-04-16 15:56, Alberto Garcia wrote: > On Fri 13 Apr 2018 05:00:48 PM CEST, Max Reitz wrote: >> On 2018-03-14 09:29, Alberto Garcia wrote: >>> The L2 and refcount caches have default sizes that can be overridden >>> using the l2-cache-size and refcount-cache-size (an additional >>> parameter named cache-size sets the combined size of both caches). >>> >>> Unless forced by one of the aforementioned parameters, QEMU will set >>> the unspecified sizes so that the L2 cache is 4 times larger than the >>> refcount cache. >>> >>> This is based on the premise that the refcount metadata needs to be >>> only a fourth of the L2 metadata to cover the same amount of disk >>> space. This is incorrect for two reasons: >>> >>> a) The amount of disk covered by an L2 table depends solely on the >>> cluster size, but in the case of a refcount block it depends on >>> the cluster size *and* the width of each refcount entry. >>> The 4/1 ratio is only valid with 16-bit entries (the default). >>> >>> b) When we talk about disk space and L2 tables we are talking about >>> guest space (L2 tables map guest clusters to host clusters), >>> whereas refcount blocks are used for host clusters (including >>> L1/L2 tables and the refcount blocks themselves). On a fully >>> populated (and uncompressed) qcow2 file, image size > virtual size >>> so there are more refcount entries than L2 entries. >>> >>> Problem (a) could be fixed by adjusting the algorithm to take into >>> account the refcount entry width. Problem (b) could be fixed by >>> increasing a bit the refcount cache size to account for the clusters >>> used for qcow2 metadata. >> >> Yeah, well, but I wouldn't give too much thought to (b). In case of >> internal snapshots, you won't write to them, so those clusters don't >> matter. So, yes, you get a bit of overhead for the metadata, but come >> on, that's not really much. > > With that text I just wanted to point out that the calculation mixes > host clusters and guest clusters. I agree that the ratio we're using is > a good approximation (apart from the refcount width issue). > >>> However this patch takes a completely different approach and instead >>> of keeping a ratio between both cache sizes it assigns as much as >>> possible to the L2 cache and the remainder to the refcount cache. >> >> Seems reasonable in a sense, but I'm wary still. I especially don't >> like that it just changes the default when nothing has been specified. >> >> I can see that we want to limit the refcount cache size, so if you >> want to give really much RAM to the L2 tables, then you don't want a >> 25 % overhead for the refcount cache, but do we really need to limit >> it to the minimum size? >> >> OTOH, four clusters doesn't seem extremely limited... Did you do your >> benchmark on an HDD? > > I tried, I see no difference, and I don't see why there would be any. > > Refcount entries are used to reference host clusters, and host clusters > are always(*) allocated sequentially, so caching refcount blocks doesn't > do much. You're always loading the same refcount block until it's full, > then you move on to the next one. As I mentioned in a previous e-mail, > having a very large refcount cache would even be detrimental because it > would make cache hits slower (noticeable under tmpfs).
Ah, right. I'm not sure whether I want to ask you whether you have tested internal snapshots. I suppose it can be detrimental for them because when taking or deleting a snapshot you need to update the refcounts of a whole bunch of clusters that might be spread randomly across the image. But I suspect that it would be rather time-consuming to produce an image with such a configuration; and I suppose if people want to make heavy use of internal snapshots they can adapt the cache size themselves? Max > (*) when a cluster gets deallocated (e.g. when the refcount table needs > to grow) then there's a hole in the file and QEMU starts looking for > free clusters again from the beginning of the file. In that case old > refcount blocks are loaded again, but the cache wouldn't help here > either (unless we would have all refcount blocks cached).
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