[zfs-discuss] ZFS write frequency

2007-11-28 Thread Ajay Kumar

IHAC who would like to understand following:

We've upgraded a box to sol10-u4 and created a ZFS pool.  We notice that 
running zfs iostat 1 or iostat -xnz 1, the data gets written to disk 
every 5 seconds, even though the data is being copied to the filesystem 
continuously.


  This behavior is different than UFS as UFS continuously writes. So, 
what's with the 5 second pause?


Any clarification will be appreciated.

Thank you
Ajay
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Re: [zfs-discuss] ZFS write frequency

2007-11-28 Thread Neil Perrin


Ajay Kumar wrote:
 IHAC who would like to understand following:
 
 We've upgraded a box to sol10-u4 and created a ZFS pool.  We notice that 
 running zfs iostat 1 or iostat -xnz 1, the data gets written to disk 
 every 5 seconds, even though the data is being copied to the filesystem 
 continuously.
 
   This behavior is different than UFS as UFS continuously writes. So, 
 what's with the 5 second pause?

ZFS creates transactions for systems calls that modify the pool.
For efficiency it gathers together individual transactions into transaction
groups (txgs) which are committed every 5 seconds.

If you are seeing some constant background write activity then that
is probably due to synchronous writes which require data be stable on
return from the system call. These are written on demand to an intent
log. 

 
 Any clarification will be appreciated.
 
 Thank you
 Ajay
 
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