docs: Document the new default sizes of the qcow2 caches
We have just reduced the refcount cache size to the minimum unless the user explicitly requests a larger one, so we have to update the documentation to reflect this change. Signed-off-by: Alberto Garcia <berto@igalia.com> Message-id: c5f0bde23558dd9d33b21fffc76ac9953cc19c56.1523968389.git.berto@igalia.com Reviewed-by: Eric Blake <eblake@redhat.com> Signed-off-by: Max Reitz <mreitz@redhat.com>
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@ -116,31 +116,30 @@ There are three options available, and all of them take bytes:
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"refcount-cache-size": maximum size of the refcount block cache
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"cache-size": maximum size of both caches combined
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There are two things that need to be taken into account:
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There are a few things that need to be taken into account:
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- Both caches must have a size that is a multiple of the cluster size
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(or the cache entry size: see "Using smaller cache sizes" below).
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- If you only set one of the options above, QEMU will automatically
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adjust the others so that the L2 cache is 4 times bigger than the
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refcount cache.
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- The default L2 cache size is 8 clusters or 1MB (whichever is more),
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and the minimum is 2 clusters (or 2 cache entries, see below).
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This means that these options are equivalent:
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- The default (and minimum) refcount cache size is 4 clusters.
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-drive file=hd.qcow2,l2-cache-size=2097152
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-drive file=hd.qcow2,refcount-cache-size=524288
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-drive file=hd.qcow2,cache-size=2621440
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- If only "cache-size" is specified then QEMU will assign as much
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memory as possible to the L2 cache before increasing the refcount
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cache size.
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The reason for this 1/4 ratio is to ensure that both caches cover the
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same amount of disk space. Note however that this is only valid with
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the default value of refcount_bits (16). If you are using a different
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value you might want to calculate both cache sizes yourself since QEMU
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will always use the same 1/4 ratio.
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Unlike L2 tables, refcount blocks are not used during normal I/O but
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only during allocations and internal snapshots. In most cases they are
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accessed sequentially (even during random guest I/O) so increasing the
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refcount cache size won't have any measurable effect in performance
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(this can change if you are using internal snapshots, so you may want
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to think about increasing the cache size if you use them heavily).
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It's also worth mentioning that there's no strict need for both caches
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to cover the same amount of disk space. The refcount cache is used
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much less often than the L2 cache, so it's perfectly reasonable to
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keep it small.
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Before QEMU 2.12 the refcount cache had a default size of 1/4 of the
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L2 cache size. This resulted in unnecessarily large caches, so now the
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refcount cache is as small as possible unless overridden by the user.
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Using smaller cache entries
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