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=====================
I/O statistics fields
=====================
The kernel exposes disk statistics via ``/proc/diskstats`` and
``/sys/block/<device>/stat``. These stats are usually accessed via tools
such as ``sar`` and ``iostat``.
Here are examples using a disk with two partitions::
/proc/diskstats:
259 0 nvme0n1 255999 814 12369153 47919 996852 81 36123024 425995 0 301795 580470 0 0 0 0 60602 106555
259 1 nvme0n1p1 492 813 17572 96 848 81 108288 210 0 76 307 0 0 0 0 0 0
259 2 nvme0n1p2 255401 1 12343477 47799 996004 0 36014736 425784 0 344336 473584 0 0 0 0 0 0
/sys/block/nvme0n1/stat:
255999 814 12369153 47919 996858 81 36123056 426009 0 301809 580491 0 0 0 0 60605 106562
/sys/block/nvme0n1/nvme0n1p1/stat:
492 813 17572 96 848 81 108288 210 0 76 307 0 0 0 0 0 0
Both files contain the same 17 statistics. ``/sys/block/<device>/stat``
contains the fields for ``<device>``. In ``/proc/diskstats`` the fields
are prefixed with the major and minor device numbers and the device
name. In the example above, the first stat value for ``nvme0n1`` is
255999 in both files.
The sysfs ``stat`` file is efficient for monitoring a small, known set
of disks. If you're tracking a large number of devices,
``/proc/diskstats`` is often the better choice since it avoids the
overhead of opening and closing multiple files for each snapshot.
All fields are cumulative, monotonic counters, except for field 9, which
resets to zero as I/Os complete. The remaining fields reset at boot, on
device reattachment or reinitialization, or when the underlying counter
overflows. Applications reading these counters should detect and handle
resets when comparing stat snapshots.
Each set of stats only applies to the indicated device; if you want
system-wide stats you'll have to find all the devices and sum them all up.
Field 1 -- # of reads completed (unsigned long)
This is the total number of reads completed successfully.
Field 2 -- # of reads merged, field 6 -- # of writes merged (unsigned long)
Reads and writes which are adjacent to each other may be merged for
efficiency. Thus two 4K reads may become one 8K read before it is
ultimately handed to the disk, and so it will be counted (and queued)
as only one I/O. This field lets you know how often this was done.
Field 3 -- # of sectors read (unsigned long)
This is the total number of sectors read successfully.
Field 4 -- # of milliseconds spent reading (unsigned int)
This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all reads (as
measured from blk_mq_alloc_request() to __blk_mq_end_request()).
Field 5 -- # of writes completed (unsigned long)
This is the total number of writes completed successfully.
Field 6 -- # of writes merged (unsigned long)
See the description of field 2.
Field 7 -- # of sectors written (unsigned long)
This is the total number of sectors written successfully.
Field 8 -- # of milliseconds spent writing (unsigned int)
This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all writes (as
measured from blk_mq_alloc_request() to __blk_mq_end_request()).
Field 9 -- # of I/Os currently in progress (unsigned int)
The only field that should go to zero. Incremented as requests are
given to appropriate struct request_queue and decremented as they finish.
Field 10 -- # of milliseconds spent doing I/Os (unsigned int)
This field increases so long as field 9 is nonzero.
Since 5.0 this field counts jiffies when at least one request was
started or completed. If request runs more than 2 jiffies then some
I/O time might be not accounted in case of concurrent requests.
Field 11 -- weighted # of milliseconds spent doing I/Os (unsigned int)
This field is incremented at each I/O start, I/O completion, I/O
merge, or read of these stats by the number of I/Os in progress
(field 9) times the number of milliseconds spent doing I/O since the
last update of this field. This can provide an easy measure of both
I/O completion time and the backlog that may be accumulating.
Field 12 -- # of discards completed (unsigned long)
This is the total number of discards completed successfully.
Field 13 -- # of discards merged (unsigned long)
See the description of field 2
Field 14 -- # of sectors discarded (unsigned long)
This is the total number of sectors discarded successfully.
Field 15 -- # of milliseconds spent discarding (unsigned int)
This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all discards (as
measured from blk_mq_alloc_request() to __blk_mq_end_request()).
Field 16 -- # of flush requests completed
This is the total number of flush requests completed successfully.
Block layer combines flush requests and executes at most one at a time.
This counts flush requests executed by disk. Not tracked for partitions.
Field 17 -- # of milliseconds spent flushing
This is the total number of milliseconds spent by all flush requests.
To avoid introducing performance bottlenecks, no locks are held while
modifying these counters. This implies that minor inaccuracies may be
introduced when changes collide, so (for instance) adding up all the
read I/Os issued per partition should equal those made to the disks ...
but due to the lack of locking it may only be very close.
In 2.6+, there are counters for each CPU, which make the lack of locking
almost a non-issue. When the statistics are read, the per-CPU counters
are summed (possibly overflowing the unsigned long variable they are
summed to) and the result given to the user. There is no convenient
user interface for accessing the per-CPU counters themselves.
Since 4.19 request times are measured with nanoseconds precision and
truncated to milliseconds before showing in this interface.
Disks vs Partitions
-------------------
There were significant changes between 2.4 and 2.6+ in the I/O subsystem.
As a result, some statistic information disappeared. The translation from
a disk address relative to a partition to the disk address relative to
the host disk happens much earlier. All merges and timings now happen
at the disk level rather than at both the disk and partition level as
in 2.4. Consequently, you'll see a different statistics output on 2.6+ for
partitions from that for disks. There are only *four* fields available
for partitions on 2.6+ machines. This is reflected in the examples above.
Field 1 -- # of reads issued
This is the total number of reads issued to this partition.
Field 2 -- # of sectors read
This is the total number of sectors requested to be read from this
partition.
Field 3 -- # of writes issued
This is the total number of writes issued to this partition.
Field 4 -- # of sectors written
This is the total number of sectors requested to be written to
this partition.
Note that since the address is translated to a disk-relative one, and no
record of the partition-relative address is kept, the subsequent success
or failure of the read cannot be attributed to the partition. In other
words, the number of reads for partitions is counted slightly before time
of queuing for partitions, and at completion for whole disks. This is
a subtle distinction that is probably uninteresting for most cases.
More significant is the error induced by counting the numbers of
reads/writes before merges for partitions and after for disks. Since a
typical workload usually contains a lot of successive and adjacent requests,
the number of reads/writes issued can be several times higher than the
number of reads/writes completed.
In 2.6.25, the full statistic set is again available for partitions and
disk and partition statistics are consistent again. Since we still don't
keep record of the partition-relative address, an operation is attributed to
the partition which contains the first sector of the request after the
eventual merges. As requests can be merged across partition, this could lead
to some (probably insignificant) inaccuracy.
Additional notes
----------------
In 2.6+, sysfs is not mounted by default. If your distribution of
Linux hasn't added it already, here's the line you'll want to add to
your ``/etc/fstab``::
none /sys sysfs defaults 0 0
In 2.6+, all disk statistics were removed from ``/proc/stat``. In 2.4, they
appear in both ``/proc/partitions`` and ``/proc/stat``, although the ones in
``/proc/stat`` take a very different format from those in ``/proc/partitions``
(see proc(5), if your system has it.)
-- ricklind@us.ibm.com
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