tree 33ebceafd0f2f21b155dde40344addf45e2cb4ed
parent fbaf666b854c04b2d8ebca17114ee409ddea08b5
author Grant Grundler <grundler@google.com> 1271295812 -0700
committer Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@redhat.com> 1273871282 -0400

[libata] Disable R_OK (Early ACK) on SII 3726 PMP

In 2009, While running "cache read" performance test of drives behind
SII PMP we encountered a "all 5 drives" timeout on more than 30% of the
machines under test.  This patch reduces the rate by a factor of about 70.
Low enough that we didn't care to further investigate the issue.

Performance impact with any sort of "normal" use was ~2%+ CPU and less
than 1% throughput degradation.  Worst case impact (cached read) was
6% IOPS reduction. This is with NCQ off (q=1) but I believe FIS based
switching enabled in the SATA driver.

The patch disables "Early ACK" in the 3726 port multiplier.
"Early ACK" is issued when device sends a FIS to the host (via PMP)
and the PMP sends an ACK immediately back to the device - well before
the host gets the response. Under worst case IOPs load (cached read
test) and more than 2 PMPs connected to a 4-port SATA controller,
I suspect the time to service all of the PMPs is exceeding the PMPs
ability to keep track of outstanding FIS it owes the Host. Reducing
the number of PMPs to 2 (or 1) reduces the frequency by several orders
of magnitude. Kudos to Gwendal for initial debugging of this issue.
[Any errors in the description are mine, not his.]

Patch is currently in production on Google servers.

Signed-off-by: Grant Grundler <grundler@google.com>
Signed-off-by: Gwendal Grignou <gwendal@google.com>
Acked-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
Signed-off-by: Jeff Garzik <jgarzik@redhat.com>