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diff --git a/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/allocators.rst b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/allocators.rst new file mode 100644 index 000000000..7aa85152a --- /dev/null +++ b/Documentation/filesystems/ext4/allocators.rst @@ -0,0 +1,56 @@ +.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0 + +Block and Inode Allocation Policy +--------------------------------- + +ext4 recognizes (better than ext3, anyway) that data locality is +generally a desirably quality of a filesystem. On a spinning disk, +keeping related blocks near each other reduces the amount of movement +that the head actuator and disk must perform to access a data block, +thus speeding up disk IO. On an SSD there of course are no moving parts, +but locality can increase the size of each transfer request while +reducing the total number of requests. This locality may also have the +effect of concentrating writes on a single erase block, which can speed +up file rewrites significantly. Therefore, it is useful to reduce +fragmentation whenever possible. + +The first tool that ext4 uses to combat fragmentation is the multi-block +allocator. When a file is first created, the block allocator +speculatively allocates 8KiB of disk space to the file on the assumption +that the space will get written soon. When the file is closed, the +unused speculative allocations are of course freed, but if the +speculation is correct (typically the case for full writes of small +files) then the file data gets written out in a single multi-block +extent. A second related trick that ext4 uses is delayed allocation. +Under this scheme, when a file needs more blocks to absorb file writes, +the filesystem defers deciding the exact placement on the disk until all +the dirty buffers are being written out to disk. By not committing to a +particular placement until it's absolutely necessary (the commit timeout +is hit, or sync() is called, or the kernel runs out of memory), the hope +is that the filesystem can make better location decisions. + +The third trick that ext4 (and ext3) uses is that it tries to keep a +file's data blocks in the same block group as its inode. This cuts down +on the seek penalty when the filesystem first has to read a file's inode +to learn where the file's data blocks live and then seek over to the +file's data blocks to begin I/O operations. + +The fourth trick is that all the inodes in a directory are placed in the +same block group as the directory, when feasible. The working assumption +here is that all the files in a directory might be related, therefore it +is useful to try to keep them all together. + +The fifth trick is that the disk volume is cut up into 128MB block +groups; these mini-containers are used as outlined above to try to +maintain data locality. However, there is a deliberate quirk -- when a +directory is created in the root directory, the inode allocator scans +the block groups and puts that directory into the least heavily loaded +block group that it can find. This encourages directories to spread out +over a disk; as the top-level directory/file blobs fill up one block +group, the allocators simply move on to the next block group. Allegedly +this scheme evens out the loading on the block groups, though the author +suspects that the directories which are so unlucky as to land towards +the end of a spinning drive get a raw deal performance-wise. + +Of course if all of these mechanisms fail, one can always use e4defrag +to defragment files. |