Fio 1.14a
[fio.git] / HOWTO
CommitLineData
71bfa161
JA
1Table of contents
2-----------------
3
41. Overview
52. How fio works
63. Running fio
74. Job file format
85. Detailed list of parameters
96. Normal output
107. Terse output
11
12
131.0 Overview and history
14------------------------
15fio was originally written to save me the hassle of writing special test
16case programs when I wanted to test a specific workload, either for
17performance reasons or to find/reproduce a bug. The process of writing
18such a test app can be tiresome, especially if you have to do it often.
19Hence I needed a tool that would be able to simulate a given io workload
20without resorting to writing a tailored test case again and again.
21
22A test work load is difficult to define, though. There can be any number
23of processes or threads involved, and they can each be using their own
24way of generating io. You could have someone dirtying large amounts of
25memory in an memory mapped file, or maybe several threads issuing
26reads using asynchronous io. fio needed to be flexible enough to
27simulate both of these cases, and many more.
28
292.0 How fio works
30-----------------
31The first step in getting fio to simulate a desired io workload, is
32writing a job file describing that specific setup. A job file may contain
33any number of threads and/or files - the typical contents of the job file
34is a global section defining shared parameters, and one or more job
35sections describing the jobs involved. When run, fio parses this file
36and sets everything up as described. If we break down a job from top to
37bottom, it contains the following basic parameters:
38
39 IO type Defines the io pattern issued to the file(s).
40 We may only be reading sequentially from this
41 file(s), or we may be writing randomly. Or even
42 mixing reads and writes, sequentially or randomly.
43
44 Block size In how large chunks are we issuing io? This may be
45 a single value, or it may describe a range of
46 block sizes.
47
48 IO size How much data are we going to be reading/writing.
49
50 IO engine How do we issue io? We could be memory mapping the
51 file, we could be using regular read/write, we
d0ff85df 52 could be using splice, async io, syslet, or even
71bfa161
JA
53 SG (SCSI generic sg).
54
6c219763 55 IO depth If the io engine is async, how large a queuing
71bfa161
JA
56 depth do we want to maintain?
57
58 IO type Should we be doing buffered io, or direct/raw io?
59
60 Num files How many files are we spreading the workload over.
61
62 Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
63 this workload over.
64
65The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
66there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
67job behaves.
68
69
703.0 Running fio
71---------------
72See the README file for command line parameters, there are only a few
73of them.
74
75Running fio is normally the easiest part - you just give it the job file
76(or job files) as parameters:
77
78$ fio job_file
79
80and it will start doing what the job_file tells it to do. You can give
81more than one job file on the command line, fio will serialize the running
82of those files. Internally that is the same as using the 'stonewall'
83parameter described the the parameter section.
84
b4692828
JA
85If the job file contains only one job, you may as well just give the
86parameters on the command line. The command line parameters are identical
87to the job parameters, with a few extra that control global parameters
88(see README). For example, for the job file parameter iodepth=2, the
c2b1e753
JA
89mirror command line option would be --iodepth 2 or --iodepth=2. You can
90also use the command line for giving more than one job entry. For each
91--name option that fio sees, it will start a new job with that name.
92Command line entries following a --name entry will apply to that job,
93until there are no more entries or a new --name entry is seen. This is
94similar to the job file options, where each option applies to the current
95job until a new [] job entry is seen.
b4692828 96
71bfa161
JA
97fio does not need to run as root, except if the files or devices specified
98in the job section requires that. Some other options may also be restricted,
6c219763 99such as memory locking, io scheduler switching, and decreasing the nice value.
71bfa161
JA
100
101
1024.0 Job file format
103-------------------
104As previously described, fio accepts one or more job files describing
105what it is supposed to do. The job file format is the classic ini file,
106where the names enclosed in [] brackets define the job name. You are free
107to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
108A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
109may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
110several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
65db0851
JA
111section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
112'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
71bfa161
JA
113
114So lets look at a really simple job file that define to threads, each
115randomly reading from a 128MiB file.
116
117; -- start job file --
118[global]
119rw=randread
120size=128m
121
122[job1]
123
124[job2]
125
126; -- end job file --
127
128As you can see, the job file sections themselves are empty as all the
129described parameters are shared. As no filename= option is given, fio
c2b1e753
JA
130makes up a filename for each of the jobs as it sees fit. On the command
131line, this job would look as follows:
132
133$ fio --name=global --rw=randread --size=128m --name=job1 --name=job2
134
71bfa161
JA
135
136Lets look at an example that have a number of processes writing randomly
137to files.
138
139; -- start job file --
140[random-writers]
141ioengine=libaio
142iodepth=4
143rw=randwrite
144bs=32k
145direct=0
146size=64m
147numjobs=4
148
149; -- end job file --
150
151Here we have no global section, as we only have one job defined anyway.
152We want to use async io here, with a depth of 4 for each file. We also
153increased the buffer size used to 32KiB and define numjobs to 4 to
154fork 4 identical jobs. The result is 4 processes each randomly writing
b4692828
JA
155to their own 64MiB file. Instead of using the above job file, you could
156have given the parameters on the command line. For this case, you would
157specify:
158
159$ fio --name=random-writers --ioengine=libaio --iodepth=4 --rw=randwrite --bs=32k --direct=0 --size=64m --numjobs=4
71bfa161
JA
160
161fio ships with a few example job files, you can also look there for
162inspiration.
163
164
1655.0 Detailed list of parameters
166-------------------------------
167
168This section describes in details each parameter associated with a job.
169Some parameters take an option of a given type, such as an integer or
170a string. The following types are used:
171
172str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
173int Integer. A whole number value, may be negative.
174siint SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a postfix
175 describing the base of the number. Accepted postfixes are k/m/g,
6c219763 176 meaning kilo, mega, and giga. So if you want to specify 4096,
71bfa161
JA
177 you could either write out '4096' or just give 4k. The postfixes
178 signify base 2 values, so 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on.
179bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
180 true and false (1 and 0).
181irange Integer range with postfix. Allows value range to be given, such
0c9baf91
JA
182 as 1024-4096. A colon may also be used as the seperator, eg
183 1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
184 specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
185 siint.
71bfa161
JA
186
187With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
188parameters.
189
190name=str ASCII name of the job. This may be used to override the
191 name printed by fio for this job. Otherwise the job
c2b1e753 192 name is used. On the command line this parameter has the
6c219763 193 special purpose of also signaling the start of a new
c2b1e753 194 job.
71bfa161 195
61697c37
JA
196description=str Text description of the job. Doesn't do anything except
197 dump this text description when this job is run. It's
198 not parsed.
199
71bfa161
JA
200directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to places files
201 in a different location than "./".
202
203filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
204 thread number, and file number. If you want to share
205 files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
ed92ac0c
JA
206 a filename for each of them to override the default. If
207 the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host and
9f9214f2 208 port to connect to in the format of =host/port. If the
af52b345
JA
209 ioengine is file based, you can specify a number of files
210 by seperating the names with a ':' colon. So if you wanted
211 a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb as the two working files,
212 you would use filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb
71bfa161 213
bbf6b540
JA
214opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
215 directory and down the file system tree.
216
71bfa161
JA
217rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
218
219 read Sequential reads
220 write Sequential writes
221 randwrite Random writes
222 randread Random reads
223 rw Sequential mixed reads and writes
224 randrw Random mixed reads and writes
225
226 For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
227 For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
228 since the speed may be different.
229
ee738499
JA
230randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
231 way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
232
71bfa161
JA
233size=siint The total size of file io for this job. This may describe
234 the size of the single file the job uses, or it may be
235 divided between the number of files in the job. If the
236 file already exists, the file size will be adjusted to this
237 size if larger than the current file size. If this parameter
238 is not given and the file exists, the file size will be used.
239
f90eff5a
JA
240bs=siint The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
241 can be given for both read and writes. If a single siint is
242 given, it will apply to both. If a second siint is specified
243 after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
244 the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
245 bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
787f7e95
JA
246 for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
247 can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
248 8k for writes and leave the read default value.
a00735e6 249
71bfa161
JA
250bsrange=irange Instead of giving a single block size, specify a range
251 and fio will mix the issued io block sizes. The issued
252 io unit will always be a multiple of the minimum value
f90eff5a
JA
253 given (also see bs_unaligned). Applies to both reads and
254 writes, however a second range can be given after a comma.
255 See bs=.
a00735e6 256
690adba3
JA
257bs_unaligned If this option is given, any byte size value within bsrange
258 may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
259 direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
71bfa161
JA
260
261nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
262
390b1537
JA
263openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
264 the same as nrfiles, can be set smaller to limit the number
265 simultaneous opens.
266
5af1c6f3
JA
267file_service_type=str Defines how fio decides which file from a job to
268 service next. The following types are defined:
269
270 random Just choose a file at random.
271
272 roundrobin Round robin over open files. This
273 is the default.
274
1907dbc6
JA
275 The string can have a number appended, indicating how
276 often to switch to a new file. So if option random:4 is
277 given, fio will switch to a new random file after 4 ios
278 have been issued.
279
71bfa161
JA
280ioengine=str Defines how the job issues io to the file. The following
281 types are defined:
282
283 sync Basic read(2) or write(2) io. lseek(2) is
284 used to position the io location.
285
286 libaio Linux native asynchronous io.
287
288 posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
289
290 mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
291 to/from using memcpy(3).
292
293 splice splice(2) is used to transfer the data and
294 vmsplice(2) to transfer data from user
295 space to the kernel.
296
d0ff85df
JA
297 syslet-rw Use the syslet system calls to make
298 regular read/write async.
299
71bfa161 300 sg SCSI generic sg v3 io. May either be
6c219763 301 synchronous using the SG_IO ioctl, or if
71bfa161
JA
302 the target is an sg character device
303 we use read(2) and write(2) for asynchronous
304 io.
305
a94ea28b
JA
306 null Doesn't transfer any data, just pretends
307 to. This is mainly used to exercise fio
308 itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
309
ed92ac0c
JA
310 net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
311 'filename' must be set appropriately to
9f9214f2 312 filename=host/port regardless of send
ed92ac0c
JA
313 or receive, if the latter only the port
314 argument is used.
315
ba0fbe10
JA
316 cpu Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
317 cycles according to the cpuload= and
318 cpucycle= options. Setting cpuload=85
319 will cause that job to do nothing but burn
320 85% of the CPU.
321
8a7bd877
JA
322 external Prefix to specify loading an external
323 IO engine object file. Append the engine
324 filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
325 to load ioengine foo.o in /tmp.
326
71bfa161
JA
327iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
328 the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
329 job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
330 concurrency.
331
cb5ab512
JA
332iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
333 It defaults to the same as iodepth, but can be set lower
334 if one so desires.
335
e916b390
JA
336iodepth_low=int The low water mark indicating when to start filling
337 the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
338 that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
339 If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
340 after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
341 the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
342
71bfa161 343direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
76a43db4
JA
344 O_DIRECT.
345
346buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
347 of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
71bfa161
JA
348
349offset=siint Start io at the given offset in the file. The data before
350 the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
351 caps the file size at real_size - offset.
352
353fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
354 for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
355 32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
356 writes issued. If fio is using non-buffered io, we may
357 not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
6c219763 358 synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
71bfa161
JA
359
360overwrite=bool If writing to a file, setup the file first and do overwrites.
361
362end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when the job exits.
363
ebb1415f
JA
364fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
365 This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
366 file close, not just at the end of the job.
367
6c219763 368rwmixcycle=int Value in milliseconds describing how often to switch between
71bfa161
JA
369 reads and writes for a mixed workload. The default is
370 500 msecs.
371
372rwmixread=int How large a percentage of the mix should be reads.
373
374rwmixwrite=int How large a percentage of the mix should be writes. If both
375 rwmixread and rwmixwrite is given and the values do not add
376 up to 100%, the latter of the two will be used to override
377 the first.
378
bb8895e0
JA
379norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
380 random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
381 new random offset without looking at past io history. This
382 means that some blocks may not be read or written, and that
383 some blocks may be read/written more than once. This option
384 is mutually exclusive with verify= for that reason.
385
71bfa161
JA
386nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
387
388prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
389 a positive value between 0 and 7, with 0 being the highest.
390 See man ionice(1).
391
392prioclass=int Set the io priority class. See man ionice(1).
393
394thinktime=int Stall the job x microseconds after an io has completed before
395 issuing the next. May be used to simulate processing being
48097d5c
JA
396 done by an application. See thinktime_blocks and
397 thinktime_spin.
398
399thinktime_spin=int
400 Only valid if thinktime is set - pretend to spend CPU time
401 doing something with the data received, before falling back
402 to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
403 thinktime.
9c1f7434
JA
404
405thinktime_blocks
406 Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
407 to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
408 defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
409 after every block.
71bfa161
JA
410
411rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job to this number of KiB/sec.
412
413ratemin=int Tell fio to do whatever it can to maintain at least this
414 bandwidth.
415
416ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
6c219763 417 of milliseconds.
71bfa161
JA
418
419cpumask=int Set the CPU affinity of this job. The parameter given is a
420 bitmask of allowed CPU's the job may run on. See man
421 sched_setaffinity(2).
422
423startdelay=int Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
424 has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
425 jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
426 time.
427
03b74b3e 428runtime=int Tell fio to terminate processing after the specified number
71bfa161
JA
429 of seconds. It can be quite hard to determine for how long
430 a specified job will run, so this parameter is handy to
431 cap the total runtime to a given time.
432
433invalidate=bool Invalidate the buffer/page cache parts for this file prior
434 to starting io. Defaults to true.
435
436sync=bool Use sync io for buffered writes. For the majority of the
437 io engines, this means using O_SYNC.
438
439mem=str Fio can use various types of memory as the io unit buffer.
440 The allowed values are:
441
442 malloc Use memory from malloc(3) as the buffers.
443
444 shm Use shared memory as the buffers. Allocated
445 through shmget(2).
446
74b025b0
JA
447 shmhuge Same as shm, but use huge pages as backing.
448
313cb206
JA
449 mmap Use mmap to allocate buffers. May either be
450 anonymous memory, or can be file backed if
451 a filename is given after the option. The
452 format is mem=mmap:/path/to/file.
71bfa161 453
d0bdaf49
JA
454 mmaphuge Use a memory mapped huge file as the buffer
455 backing. Append filename after mmaphuge, ala
456 mem=mmaphuge:/hugetlbfs/file
457
71bfa161 458 The area allocated is a function of the maximum allowed
5394ae5f
JA
459 bs size for the job, multiplied by the io depth given. Note
460 that for shmhuge and mmaphuge to work, the system must have
461 free huge pages allocated. This can normally be checked
462 and set by reading/writing /proc/sys/vm/nr_hugepages on a
463 Linux system. Fio assumes a huge page is 4MiB in size. So
464 to calculate the number of huge pages you need for a given
465 job file, add up the io depth of all jobs (normally one unless
466 iodepth= is used) and multiply by the maximum bs set. Then
467 divide that number by the huge page size. You can see the
468 size of the huge pages in /proc/meminfo. If no huge pages
469 are allocated by having a non-zero number in nr_hugepages,
56bb17f2 470 using mmaphuge or shmhuge will fail. Also see hugepage-size.
5394ae5f
JA
471
472 mmaphuge also needs to have hugetlbfs mounted and the file
473 location should point there. So if it's mounted in /huge,
474 you would use mem=mmaphuge:/huge/somefile.
71bfa161 475
56bb17f2
JA
476hugepage-size=siint
477 Defines the size of a huge page. Must at least be equal
478 to the system setting, see /proc/meminfo. Defaults to 4MiB.
c51074e7
JA
479 Should probably always be a multiple of megabytes, so using
480 hugepage-size=Xm is the preferred way to set this to avoid
481 setting a non-pow-2 bad value.
56bb17f2 482
71bfa161
JA
483exitall When one job finishes, terminate the rest. The default is
484 to wait for each job to finish, sometimes that is not the
485 desired action.
486
487bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
6c219763 488 is specified in milliseconds.
71bfa161
JA
489
490create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
491 This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
492 files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
493 used and even the number of processors in the system.
494
495create_fsync=bool fsync the data file after creation. This is the
496 default.
497
e545a6ce
JA
498unlink=bool Unlink the job files when done. Not the default, as repeated
499 runs of that job would then waste time recreating the fileset
500 again and again.
71bfa161
JA
501
502loops=int Run the specified number of iterations of this job. Used
503 to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
504 to 1.
505
506verify=str If writing to a file, fio can verify the file contents
507 after each iteration of the job. The allowed values are:
508
509 md5 Use an md5 sum of the data area and store
510 it in the header of each block.
511
512 crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
513 it in the header of each block.
514
6c219763 515 This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
71bfa161
JA
516 system to make sure that the written data is also
517 correctly read back.
518
519stonewall Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
520 starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
521 points in the job file.
522
523numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
524 used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
fa28c85a
JA
525 the same thing. We regard that grouping of jobs as a
526 specific group.
527
528group_reporting If 'numjobs' is set, it may be interesting to display
529 statistics for the group as a whole instead of for each
530 individual job. This is especially true of 'numjobs' is
531 large, looking at individual thread/process output quickly
532 becomes unwieldy. If 'group_reporting' is specified, fio
533 will show the final report per-group instead of per-job.
71bfa161
JA
534
535thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
536 given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
537 instead.
538
539zonesize=siint Divide a file into zones of the specified size. See zoneskip.
540
541zoneskip=siint Skip the specified number of bytes when zonesize data has
542 been read. The two zone options can be used to only do
543 io on zones of a file.
544
076efc7c
JA
545write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
546 read_iolog.
71bfa161 547
076efc7c 548read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
71bfa161
JA
549 io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
550 workload and replay it sometime later.
551
552write_bw_log If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
553 file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
e0da9bc2
JA
554 jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
555 script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
556 graphs.
71bfa161
JA
557
558write_lat_log Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
559 completion latencies instead.
560
561lockmem=siint Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
562 potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
563 with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
564
565exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
566 through system(3).
567
568exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
569 though system(3).
570
571ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
572 io scheduler before running.
573
574cpuload=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, attempt to use the specified
575 percentage of CPU cycles.
576
577cpuchunks=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, split the load into
6c219763 578 cycles of the given time. In milliseconds.
71bfa161
JA
579
580
5816.0 Interpreting the output
582---------------------------
583
584fio spits out a lot of output. While running, fio will display the
585status of the jobs created. An example of that would be:
586
73c8b082 587Threads: 1: [_r] [24.8% done] [ 13509/ 8334 kb/s] [eta 00h:01m:31s]
71bfa161
JA
588
589The characters inside the square brackets denote the current status of
590each thread. The possible values (in typical life cycle order) are:
591
592Idle Run
593---- ---
594P Thread setup, but not started.
595C Thread created.
596I Thread initialized, waiting.
597 R Running, doing sequential reads.
598 r Running, doing random reads.
599 W Running, doing sequential writes.
600 w Running, doing random writes.
601 M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
602 m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
603 F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
604V Running, doing verification of written data.
605E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
606_ Thread reaped.
607
608The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
6043c579
JA
609currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check, and the estimated
610completion percentage and time for the running group. It's impossible to
611estimate runtime of the following groups (if any).
71bfa161
JA
612
613When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
614each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
615direction, the output looks like:
616
617Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
618 write: io= 32MiB, bw= 666KiB/s, runt= 50320msec
6104ddb6
JA
619 slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
620 clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
621 bw (KiB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
71bfa161 622 cpu : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969
71619dc2 623 IO depths : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
8abdce66
JA
624 lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
625 lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
71bfa161
JA
626
627The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
628thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
629they denote:
630
631io= Number of megabytes io performed
632bw= Average bandwidth rate
633runt= The runtime of that thread
634 slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, dev being the
635 standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
636 the io. For sync io, the slat is really the completion
637 latency, since queue/complete is one operation there.
638 clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
639 time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
640 sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
641 as the time from submit to complete is basically just
642 CPU time (io has already been done, see slat explanation).
643 bw= Bandwidth. Same names as the xlat stats, but also includes
644 an approximate percentage of total aggregate bandwidth
645 this thread received in this group. This last value is
646 only really useful if the threads in this group are on the
647 same disk, since they are then competing for disk access.
648cpu= CPU usage. User and system time, along with the number
649 of context switches this thread went through.
71619dc2
JA
650IO depths= The distribution of io depths over the job life time. The
651 numbers are divided into powers of 2, so for example the
652 16= entries includes depths up to that value but higher
653 than the previous entry. In other words, it covers the
654 range from 16 to 31.
ec118304
JA
655IO latencies= The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
656 time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
657 The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
658 meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
8abdce66
JA
659 within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
660 took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
71bfa161
JA
661
662After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
663will look like this:
664
665Run status group 0 (all jobs):
666 READ: io=64MiB, aggrb=22178, minb=11355, maxb=11814, mint=2840msec, maxt=2955msec
667 WRITE: io=64MiB, aggrb=1302, minb=666, maxb=669, mint=50093msec, maxt=50320msec
668
669For each data direction, it prints:
670
671io= Number of megabytes io performed.
672aggrb= Aggregate bandwidth of threads in this group.
673minb= The minimum average bandwidth a thread saw.
674maxb= The maximum average bandwidth a thread saw.
675mint= The smallest runtime of the threads in that group.
676maxt= The longest runtime of the threads in that group.
677
678And finally, the disk statistics are printed. They will look like this:
679
680Disk stats (read/write):
681 sda: ios=16398/16511, merge=30/162, ticks=6853/819634, in_queue=826487, util=100.00%
682
683Each value is printed for both reads and writes, with reads first. The
684numbers denote:
685
686ios= Number of ios performed by all groups.
687merge= Number of merges io the io scheduler.
688ticks= Number of ticks we kept the disk busy.
689io_queue= Total time spent in the disk queue.
690util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
691 busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
692
693
6947.0 Terse output
695----------------
696
697For scripted usage where you typically want to generate tables or graphs
6af019c9 698of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
71bfa161
JA
699The format is one long line of values, such as:
700
6af019c9
JA
701client1;0;0;1906777;1090804;1790;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;929380;1152890;25.510151%;1078276.333333;128948.113404;0;0;0;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000;0.000000;0;0;0.000000%;0.000000;0.000000;100.000000%;0.000000%;324;100.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;100.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%
702;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%
71bfa161
JA
703
704Split up, the format is as follows:
705
706 jobname, groupid, error
707 READ status:
708 KiB IO, bandwidth (KiB/sec), runtime (msec)
709 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
710 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
6c219763 711 Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161
JA
712 WRITE status:
713 KiB IO, bandwidth (KiB/sec), runtime (msec)
714 Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
715 Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
6c219763 716 Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
71bfa161 717 CPU usage: user, system, context switches
2270890c
JA
718 IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
719 IO latencies: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, >=2000
720 Text description
71bfa161 721