Added disk activity from 2.6.0 to 2.6.1 (fwd)
Quoted 12 lines · Tim Shepard
Quoted 11 lines
Quoted 11 lines
Quoted 10 lines
some days ago I installed 2.6.1 here and immediately noticed a slower bootup time.
The disk during boot is also very much showing a lot more activity.
And the same when starting up a new program.
Was there a change that explains this?I just reinstalled 2.6.0 and everything went back to being quite peaceful.
Quoted 8 lines
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 1 line
Run "vstat 1" while you're seeing the problem with 2.6.1, and post it here.
I just spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what the "vstat" program is. I've concluded that there's no such thing and that you must have meant "vmstat" (just a typo away).
That's right, vmstat, sorry.
I sort of guessed that ;-)
Anyway, I tested a bit and the results shows interesting differences:
vmstat 1 when starting knode on 2.6.0:
procs memory swap io system cpu
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy wa id 0 0 0 161556 54636 170172 0 0 344 395 600 343 22 8 32 38 0 1 0 159020 54652 171788 0 0 1464 0 1140 893 4 2 13 82 1 0 0 156668 54652 173420 0 0 1600 0 1081 774 29 9 14 49 1 0 0 156540 54656 173416 0 0 4 0 1027 379 40 10 0 49 1 0 0 156540 54656 173416 0 0 0 0 1003 386 41 9 0 49 0 3 0 156476 54708 173432 0 0 0 4936 1174 414 22 9 48 22 0 3 0 156476 54708 173432 0 0 0 2072 1273 425 1 1 99 0 0 2 0 156476 54712 173428 0 0 0 332 1230 481 1 0 96 3 0 1 0 155252 54916 173428 0 0 112 1204 1202 1481 21 4 35 40 0 0 0 153924 54996 173688 0 0 96 0 1029 2797 36 6 5 54 0 0 0 153924 54996 173688 0 0 0 0 1167 1126 5 1 0 94 0 0 0 153916 55004 173680 0 0 8 0 1157 1193 7 2 0 92 0 0 0 156916 55040 173712 0 0 4 0 1096 1437 16 6 0
and the same situation on 2.6.1
procs memory swap io system cpu
r b swpd free buff cache si so bi bo in cs us sy wa id 0 0 0 148312 56644 176052 0 0 280 317 589 325 17 7 26 49 0 1 0 144232 56660 178484 0 0 2304 120 1234 1022 5 4 28 64 1 0 0 142832 56660 179232 0 0 756 0 1097 855 35 10 7 48 1 0 0 142832 56660 179232 0 0 0 0 1066 433 41 11 0 49 1 0 0 142832 56660 179232 0 0 0 0 1046 437 41 10 0 49 0 3 0 142768 56680 179280 0 0 24 4904 1226 575 26 8 31 36 0 3 0 142688 56812 179284 0 0 24 2212 1332 534 3 1 97 0 0 1 0 142624 56816 179280 0 0 0 852 1281 561 2 1 93 5 1 0 0 141024 56916 179520 0 0 76 524 1192 1619 20 5 50 26 0 0 0 140624 56968 179536 0 0 68 0 1064 2486 27 4 3 65 0 0 0 140624 56968 179604 0 0 0 0 1204 1022 4 1 0 95 0 0 0 140624 56976 179596 0 0 0 28 1088 546 2 0 1 97 0 0 0 140624 56984 179588 0 0 8 0 1167 970 7 2 0 92 0 0 0 140496 57164 179612 0 0 0 708 1164 567 1 0 21 77 0 0 0 140544 57164 179612 0 0 0 0 1049 475 1 0 0 99 2 0 0 140480 57212 179564 0 0 8 0 1055 1264 15 4 1 81 0 0 0 143480 57212 179564 0 0 0 0 1157 1028 6 2 0 92 0 0 0 143480 57224 179552 0 0 4 20 1171 715 3 1 2 95 0 1 0 143432 57352 179560 0 0 0 136 1170 1100 6 3 1 89 0 0 0 143432 57352 179560 0 0 0 188 1092 545 1 1 11 88 0 0 0 143432 57352 179560 0 0 0 0 1182 701 2 1 0 97 0 0 0 143432 57352 179560 0 0 0 0 1070 568 1 0 0 98
I chose knode as this seemed to generate most of the strange diskactivity.
AFAIK the difference is that 2.6.1 will overlap IN and OUT activities better than 2.6.0 thus generating more seeks (explains the different sounding disks) and worse alltogether performance.
I also did some more experiments with starting konqueror, which shows similar behaviour.
The boot times from /var/log/boot.log
2.6.0 takes 24 seconds
2.6.1 takes 26 seconds
That means that the difference isn't that big, it just _feels_ longer because of the furious diskactivity.
Another "feeling" is that 2.6.0 is more interactively responsive, no proof for that though.
Quoted 6 lines
Quoted 6 lines
I've not yet used any USB disks on 2.6.1, but I noticed some variability of USB disk performance on earlier 2.6.0-test* kernels. Are any USB disks involved in your 2.6.1 observations? For that matter, what type of disks are involved in your 2.6.1 observations:
USB, SCSI, or IDE/ATAPI? And what type of file systems (ext2 or ext3 or ?)?
No USB.
Most of the filesystems are reiserfs, but the rootfs is ext3
Was there a significant change in the resiserfs code ?
BRGDS
Dag