Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 01 Apr 2003 08:02:33 +1000 | From | Nick Piggin <> | Subject | Re: Delaying writes to disk when there's no need |
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Helge Hafting wrote:
> Erik Hensema wrote: > [...] > >> Helge Hafting already pointed out that writing out the data earlier >> isn't >> desirable. The problem isn't in the waiting: the problem is in the >> writing. >> I think the current kernel tries to write too much data too fast when >> there's absolutely no reason to do so. It should probably gently >> write out >> small amounts of data until there is a more pressing need for memory. >> > I don't think the problem is "writing a large chunk", rather that this > chunk is scheduled for writing a bit too late. Memory is filling up > and the process producing data us throttled while waiting for > the write to free up pages. Then the "huge chunk" of pages is released, > and memory is allowed to fill up for too long again. > > Seem to me the correct solution is to start writing out > things long before memory gets so full that we need to > throttle the producer.
I haven't thought about this much, but it seems to me that doing writeout whenever the disk would otherwise be idle (and we have dirty memory to write out) would be a good solution.
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