[PATCH v2 0/3] dm zoned: fix two idle reclaim problems

From: illofspeed

Date: Sat Oct 10 2026 - 12:16:31 EST


v2: no code changes. The only change is my author address: v1 went out on
2026-10-10 from my previous address. Please apply this version instead of v1.

These patches fix two problems in dm-zoned's reclaim worker, found while
running md RAID5 on three dm-zoned targets on 27 TB host-managed SMR drives
(WD Ultrastar DC HC680), each target with a regular cache device.

1. On a target with cache zones and no free sequential zone, an idle
target keeps copying random zones into other random zones, forever
(patch 2; patch 1 makes the resulting -ENOSPC back off instead of
spinning). After a full md rebuild every chunk is mapped, so this
happens right after a rebuild: the idle member read and wrote about
72 MB/s nonstop for hours.

2. After a reclaim pass that ends while the target is busy, the idle poll
is never re-armed, so zones filled under load are not reclaimed when the
target goes idle (patch 3). Users notice it as "the buffer never drains";
the workaround has been a timer sending "dmsetup message <dev> 0 reclaim".

Testing: the three patches were built as an out-of-tree dm-zoned module for
7.2.6 (the changed code is identical in current master) and tested
- on emulated host-managed drives (tcmu-runner ZBC handler) in a VM: the
idle copy loop reproduced with the stock module (340 MB/s on an idle
target, zone counters unchanged), 0 MB/s with the patches;
- on the three real drives since 2026-10-05: crash test, three 1.5 TiB
write benchmarks, and eight conversions between single-device and
cache-device layouts; emptied zones were reclaimed within minutes of the
targets going idle without the reclaim timer.
- with a reproducer that needs no special hardware (scsi_debug zbc=managed,
64 MiB zones, plus a 1 GiB loop cache device): stock module ~600 MB/s of
read+write on the idle target with unchanged zone counters, patched
module 0 MB/s:
https://github.com/illofspeed/synology-host-managed-smr/tree/main/repro
Not done: a test on current master itself (only 7.2.6), and a rebuild onto a
cached member with the patches (the first problem was seen after a rebuild
with the stock module).

Related, not addressed here: the double-free in dmz_load_sb() reported on
dm-devel on 2026-05-30.

The problems were found and the patches written with the help of an AI
coding assistant (hence Assisted-by); the analysis, the tests on real
hardware and this description were reviewed by me.

illofspeed (3):
dm zoned: back off when reclaim finds no destination zone
dm zoned: do not reclaim a random zone into another random zone
dm zoned: keep polling for idle reclaim after a reclaim pass

drivers/md/dm-zoned-reclaim.c | 28 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
1 file changed, 26 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

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2.47.3