Re: [PATCH 0/3] implement readpages() for block device to optimize sequential read

From: Andrew Morton
Date: Thu Aug 21 2014 - 17:44:22 EST


On Sat, 16 Aug 2014 02:09:44 +0900 Akinobu Mita <akinobu.mita@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 2014-08-15 7:04 GMT+09:00 Andrew Morton <akpm@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
> > On Tue, 5 Aug 2014 23:38:31 +0900 Akinobu Mita <akinobu.mita@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> >
> >> This patchset implements readpages() operation for block device by
> >> using mpage_readpages() which can create multipage BIOs instead of
> >> BIOs for each page and reduce system CPU time consumption.
> >
> > Patchset is simple and straightforward enough. But who the
> > heck cares about the performance of buffered reads from /dev/XXX?
>
> I tend to consider the block device as a baseline when I measure the
> performance of the storage device. So I was a bit surprised when I saw
> the performance of buffered reads from filesystem is better than the one
> from block device. That is the reason about this patch for me.

OK. The lack of readpages for blockdevs has been an outstanding oddity
for a decade or longer - I think it's just that nobody was motivated to
do it because the workload isn't important.

But the implementation looks pretty simple so why not clean it up.

I grabbed the patches.
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