Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-05 Thread Kyungmin Park
Hi, On Dec 6, 2007 7:01 AM, Jared Hulbert <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Probably about 1000 clocks but its always going to depend upon the > > workload and whether any other work can be done usefully. > > Yeah. Sounds right, in the microsecond range. Be interesting to see data. > > Anybody

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-05 Thread Jared Hulbert
> Probably about 1000 clocks but its always going to depend upon the > workload and whether any other work can be done usefully. Yeah. Sounds right, in the microsecond range. Be interesting to see data. Anybody have ideas on what kind of experiments could confirm this estimate is right? -- To

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-05 Thread Jared Hulbert
Probably about 1000 clocks but its always going to depend upon the workload and whether any other work can be done usefully. Yeah. Sounds right, in the microsecond range. Be interesting to see data. Anybody have ideas on what kind of experiments could confirm this estimate is right? -- To

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-05 Thread Kyungmin Park
Hi, On Dec 6, 2007 7:01 AM, Jared Hulbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Probably about 1000 clocks but its always going to depend upon the workload and whether any other work can be done usefully. Yeah. Sounds right, in the microsecond range. Be interesting to see data. Anybody have ideas on

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Robert Hancock
Chris Friesen wrote: Over on comp.os.linux.development.system someone asked an interesting question, and I thought I'd mention it here. Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to complete? The

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 16:08:07 -0800 "Jared Hulbert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Dec 4, 2007 3:24 PM, Alan Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes > > > behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. > > > > You

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
On Dec 4, 2007 3:24 PM, Alan Cox <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes > > behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. > > You miss the point - any controller you hide it behind almost inevitably > adds enough latency

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
> > Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see it. We want a block > > interface for these devices, we just need a faster slimmer interface. > > Maybe a new mtdblock interface that doesn't do erase would be the > > place for? > > Doesn't do erase? MTD has to learn almost all tricks from the

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
> Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes > behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. You miss the point - any controller you hide it behind almost inevitably adds enough latency you don't want to use it synchronously. Alan -- To unsubscribe

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jörn Engel
On Tue, 4 December 2007 13:54:21 -0800, Jared Hulbert wrote: > > Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see it. We want a block > interface for these devices, we just need a faster slimmer interface. > Maybe a new mtdblock interface that doesn't do erase would be the > place for? Doesn't do

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
> > microseconds level and an order of magnitude higher bandwidth than > > SATA. Is that fast enough to warrant this more synchronous IO? > > See the mtd layer. Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing.

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
> > refinements could theoretically get us down one more (~100 > > microsecond). > > They've already done already better than that. Here's a solid state > drive with a claimed 20 microsecond access time: > > http://www.curtisssd.com/products/drives/hyperxclr Right. That looks to be RAM based,

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:52:20 -0500 Jeff Garzik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Alan Cox wrote: > > For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. > > You forget the Gigabyte i-RAM. > > For others: the i-RAM is a SATA-based device that plugs into a PCI slot > on your motherboard

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jeff Garzik
Alan Cox wrote: For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. You forget the Gigabyte i-RAM. For others: the i-RAM is a SATA-based device that plugs into a PCI slot on your motherboard (for power), providing RAM+battery backup as fast as your SATA bus and DIMMs will go.

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Chris Friesen
Jared Hulbert wrote: Magnetic drives have latencies ~10 milliseconds, current SSD's are an order of magnitude better (~1 millisecond), new interfaces and refinements could theoretically get us down one more (~100 microsecond). They've already done already better than that. Here's a solid

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
> microseconds level and an order of magnitude higher bandwidth than > SATA. Is that fast enough to warrant this more synchronous IO? See the mtd layer. > BTW - This trend toward faster, lower latency busses is marching > forward. 2 examples; the ioDrive from Fusion IO, Micron's RAM-module >

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
> > Has anyone played with this concept? > > For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. What is fast enough? As I understand the basic memory technology, the hard limit is in the 100's of microseconds range for latency. SATA adds something to that. I'd be surprised to see

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
Has anyone played with this concept? For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. What is fast enough? As I understand the basic memory technology, the hard limit is in the 100's of microseconds range for latency. SATA adds something to that. I'd be surprised to see

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
microseconds level and an order of magnitude higher bandwidth than SATA. Is that fast enough to warrant this more synchronous IO? See the mtd layer. BTW - This trend toward faster, lower latency busses is marching forward. 2 examples; the ioDrive from Fusion IO, Micron's RAM-module like

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Chris Friesen
Jared Hulbert wrote: Magnetic drives have latencies ~10 milliseconds, current SSD's are an order of magnitude better (~1 millisecond), new interfaces and refinements could theoretically get us down one more (~100 microsecond). They've already done already better than that. Here's a solid

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jeff Garzik
Alan Cox wrote: For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. You forget the Gigabyte i-RAM. For others: the i-RAM is a SATA-based device that plugs into a PCI slot on your motherboard (for power), providing RAM+battery backup as fast as your SATA bus and DIMMs will go.

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
On Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:52:20 -0500 Jeff Garzik [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Alan Cox wrote: For things like SATA based devices they aren't that fast yet. You forget the Gigabyte i-RAM. For others: the i-RAM is a SATA-based device that plugs into a PCI slot on your motherboard (for

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
refinements could theoretically get us down one more (~100 microsecond). They've already done already better than that. Here's a solid state drive with a claimed 20 microsecond access time: http://www.curtisssd.com/products/drives/hyperxclr Right. That looks to be RAM based, which

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
microseconds level and an order of magnitude higher bandwidth than SATA. Is that fast enough to warrant this more synchronous IO? See the mtd layer. Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. Basically

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jörn Engel
On Tue, 4 December 2007 13:54:21 -0800, Jared Hulbert wrote: Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see it. We want a block interface for these devices, we just need a faster slimmer interface. Maybe a new mtdblock interface that doesn't do erase would be the place for? Doesn't do erase?

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. You miss the point - any controller you hide it behind almost inevitably adds enough latency you don't want to use it synchronously. Alan -- To unsubscribe from

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
Maybe I'm missing something but I don't see it. We want a block interface for these devices, we just need a faster slimmer interface. Maybe a new mtdblock interface that doesn't do erase would be the place for? Doesn't do erase? MTD has to learn almost all tricks from the block layer,

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Jared Hulbert
On Dec 4, 2007 3:24 PM, Alan Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. You miss the point - any controller you hide it behind almost inevitably adds enough latency you

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Alan Cox
On Tue, 4 Dec 2007 16:08:07 -0800 Jared Hulbert [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: On Dec 4, 2007 3:24 PM, Alan Cox [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Right. The trend is to hide the nastiness of NAND technology changes behind controllers. In general I think this is a good thing. You miss the point -

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-04 Thread Robert Hancock
Chris Friesen wrote: Over on comp.os.linux.development.system someone asked an interesting question, and I thought I'd mention it here. Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to complete? The

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-03 Thread Alan Cox
> Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial > to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to > complete? The idea is that you could avoid at least two task context > switches, and if the data access can be completed at less cost than > those

solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-03 Thread Chris Friesen
Over on comp.os.linux.development.system someone asked an interesting question, and I thought I'd mention it here. Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to complete? The idea is that you could

solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-03 Thread Chris Friesen
Over on comp.os.linux.development.system someone asked an interesting question, and I thought I'd mention it here. Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to complete? The idea is that you could

Re: solid state drive access and context switching

2007-12-03 Thread Alan Cox
Given a fast low-latency solid state drive, would it ever be beneficial to simply wait in the kernel for synchronous read/write calls to complete? The idea is that you could avoid at least two task context switches, and if the data access can be completed at less cost than those context