Re: [PATCH 1/2] fat: batch synchronous mirror writes
From: OGAWA Hirofumi
Date: Mon Oct 26 2026 - 03:37:57 EST
Matheus Alves de Almeida <matheus.aalmeida@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
> fat_mirror_bhs() currently synchronizes buffer-by-buffer on synchronous
> mounts, serializing I/O and degrading performance.
>
> Make fat_mirror_bhs() batch dirty buffer heads and use fat_sync_bhs()
> to sync several at once. Add a fat_brelse_array() helper that releases
> buffer heads in an array.
>
> Benchmarking was done under QEMU/KVM with a virtio-blk device using
> cache=directsync. Each result is the arithmetic mean of 10 samples.
>
> start = now_ns();
> for (unsigned i = 0; i < count; i++) {
> fallocate(fds[i], FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE, 0, bytes);
> }
> elapsed = now_ns() - start;
>
> Sync-mounted FAT32 using count=16 files:
> File size Cluster size Before After Improvement
> 256MiB 512B 49.81s 12.26s 4.06x
> 1MiB 512B 0.198s 0.057s 3.50x
> 256MiB 4096B 7.060s 1.640s 4.31x
> 1MiB 4096B 0.073s 0.028s 2.60x
>
> Asynchronous mounts were also benchmarked with no noticeable performance
> change.
>
> Signed-off-by: Matheus Alves de Almeida <matheus.aalmeida@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
> fs/fat/fat.h | 1 +
> fs/fat/fatent.c | 81 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--------------
> fs/fat/misc.c | 6 ++++
> 3 files changed, 65 insertions(+), 23 deletions(-)
>
> diff --git a/fs/fat/fat.h b/fs/fat/fat.h
> index b18385461de8..5086c35230ac 100644
> --- a/fs/fat/fat.h
> +++ b/fs/fat/fat.h
> @@ -479,6 +479,7 @@ void fat_truncate_time(struct inode *inode, struct timespec64 *now,
> int fat_update_time(struct inode *inode, enum fs_update_time type,
> unsigned int flags);
> extern int fat_sync_bhs(struct buffer_head **bhs, int nr_bhs);
> +void fat_brelse_array(struct buffer_head *bhs[], int n);
>
> int fat_cache_init(void);
> void fat_cache_destroy(void);
> diff --git a/fs/fat/fatent.c b/fs/fat/fatent.c
> index 8897a5dd522d..4fa1fae5abf9 100644
> --- a/fs/fat/fatent.c
> +++ b/fs/fat/fatent.c
> @@ -376,39 +376,74 @@ int fat_ent_read(struct inode *inode, struct fat_entry *fatent, int entry)
> return ops->ent_get(fatent);
> }
>
> -/* FIXME: We can write the blocks as more big chunk. */
> -static int fat_mirror_bhs(struct super_block *sb, struct buffer_head **bhs,
> - int nr_bhs)
> +static int fat_mirror_one(struct super_block *sb, struct buffer_head **bhs,
> + int nr_bhs, int target)
> {
> struct msdos_sb_info *sbi = MSDOS_SB(sb);
> + sector_t backup_fat = sbi->fat_length * target;
> + /*
> + * Use the value of MAX_BUF_PER_PAGE for 4K pages. This reduces stack
> + * usage on large-page architectures as callers may already have a
> + * MAX_BUF_PER_PAGE-sized array in their stack.
> + */
> + struct buffer_head *dirty[8];
> struct buffer_head *c_bh;
> - int err, n, copy;
> + int err, err2, n, nr_dirty;
>
> + nr_dirty = 0;
> err = 0;
> - for (copy = 1; copy < sbi->fats; copy++) {
> - sector_t backup_fat = sbi->fat_length * copy;
> -
> - for (n = 0; n < nr_bhs; n++) {
> - c_bh = sb_getblk(sb, backup_fat + bhs[n]->b_blocknr);
> - if (!c_bh) {
> - err = -ENOMEM;
> - goto error;
> + for (n = 0; n < nr_bhs; n++) {
> + c_bh = sb_getblk(sb, backup_fat + bhs[n]->b_blocknr);
> + if (!c_bh) {
> + err = -ENOMEM;
> + goto error;
> + }
> + /* Avoid race with userspace read via bdev */
> + lock_buffer(c_bh);
> + memcpy(c_bh->b_data, bhs[n]->b_data, sb->s_blocksize);
> + set_buffer_uptodate(c_bh);
> + unlock_buffer(c_bh);
> + mmb_mark_buffer_dirty(c_bh,
> + &MSDOS_I(sbi->fat_inode)->i_metadata_bhs);
> + if (sb->s_flags & SB_SYNCHRONOUS) {
> + dirty[nr_dirty] = c_bh;
> + ++nr_dirty;
> + if (nr_dirty == ARRAY_SIZE(dirty)) {
> + err = fat_sync_bhs(dirty, nr_dirty);
> + fat_brelse_array(dirty, nr_dirty);
> + nr_dirty = 0;
> + if (err)
> + goto error;
> }
> - /* Avoid race with userspace read via bdev */
> - lock_buffer(c_bh);
> - memcpy(c_bh->b_data, bhs[n]->b_data, sb->s_blocksize);
> - set_buffer_uptodate(c_bh);
> - unlock_buffer(c_bh);
> - mmb_mark_buffer_dirty(c_bh,
> - &MSDOS_I(sbi->fat_inode)->i_metadata_bhs);
> - if (sb->s_flags & SB_SYNCHRONOUS)
> - err = sync_dirty_buffer(c_bh);
> + } else {
> brelse(c_bh);
> - if (err)
> - goto error;
> }
> }
> +
> error:
> + if (nr_dirty) {
> + err2 = fat_sync_bhs(dirty, nr_dirty);
int err2 = fat_sync_bhs(dirty, nr_dirty);
I'd like to see err2 as local.
> + if (!err)
> + err = err2;
> + fat_brelse_array(dirty, nr_dirty);
> + }
> +
> + return err;
> +}
> +
> +static int fat_mirror_bhs(struct super_block *sb, struct buffer_head **bhs,
> + int nr_bhs)
> +{
> + struct msdos_sb_info *sbi = MSDOS_SB(sb);
> + int err, copy;
> +
> + err = 0;
> + for (copy = 1; copy < sbi->fats; copy++) {
> + err = fat_mirror_one(sb, bhs, nr_bhs, copy);
> + if (err)
> + break;
> + }
> +
> return err;
int err = fat_mirror_one(sb, bhs, nr_bhs, copy);
if (err)
return err;
}
return 0;
very minor (either is ok actually)
> }
>
> diff --git a/fs/fat/misc.c b/fs/fat/misc.c
> index e79762cf1975..f8f89b947baf 100644
> --- a/fs/fat/misc.c
> +++ b/fs/fat/misc.c
> @@ -365,3 +365,9 @@ int fat_sync_bhs(struct buffer_head **bhs, int nr_bhs)
> }
> return err;
> }
> +
> +void fat_brelse_array(struct buffer_head *bhs[], int n)
> +{
> + while (--n >= 0)
> + brelse(bhs[n]);
> +}
I'd like this is noop if n == 0, possibly easier to use and safer in future.
Thanks.
--
OGAWA Hirofumi <hirofumi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>