5. Detailed list of parameters
6. Normal output
7. Terse output
-
+8. Trace file format
+9. CPU idleness profiling
1.0 Overview and history
------------------------
Num threads How many threads or processes should we spread
this workload over.
-
+
The above are the basic parameters defined for a workload, in addition
there's a multitude of parameters that modify other aspects of how this
job behaves.
These can be used on the command line or in the job file, and will be
automatically substituted with the current system values when the job
-is run.
+is run. Simple math is also supported on these keywords, so you can
+perform actions like:
+
+size=8*$mb_memory
+
+and get that properly expanded to 8 times the size of memory in the
+machine.
5.0 Detailed list of parameters
str String. This is a sequence of alpha characters.
time Integer with possible time suffix. In seconds unless otherwise
specified, use eg 10m for 10 minutes. Accepts s/m/h for seconds,
- minutes, and hours.
+ minutes, and hours, and accepts 'ms' (or 'msec') for milliseconds,
+ and 'us' (or 'usec') for microseconds.
int SI integer. A whole number value, which may contain a suffix
describing the base of the number. Accepted suffixes are k/m/g/t/p,
meaning kilo, mega, giga, tera, and peta. The suffix is not case
- sensitive. So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
+ sensitive, and you may also include trailing 'b' (eg 'kb' is the same
+ as 'k'). So if you want to specify 4096, you could either write
out '4096' or just give 4k. The suffixes signify base 2 values, so
- 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on. If the option accepts an upper
- and lower range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values.
- May also include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used,
- the number is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
+ 1024 is 1k and 1024k is 1m and so on, unless the suffix is explicitly
+ set to a base 10 value using 'kib', 'mib', 'gib', etc. If that is the
+ case, then 1000 is used as the multiplier. This can be handy for
+ disks, since manufacturers generally use base 10 values when listing
+ the capacity of a drive. If the option accepts an upper and lower
+ range, use a colon ':' or minus '-' to separate such values. May also
+ include a prefix to indicate numbers base. If 0x is used, the number
+ is assumed to be hexadecimal. See irange.
bool Boolean. Usually parsed as an integer, however only defined for
true and false (1 and 0).
irange Integer range with suffix. Allows value range to be given, such
1k:4k. If the option allows two sets of ranges, they can be
specified with a ',' or '/' delimiter: 1k-4k/8k-32k. Also see
int.
+float_list A list of floating numbers, separated by a ':' character.
With the above in mind, here follows the complete list of fio job
parameters.
not parsed.
directory=str Prefix filenames with this directory. Used to place files
- in a different location than "./".
+ in a different location than "./". See the 'filename' option
+ for escaping certain characters.
filename=str Fio normally makes up a filename based on the job name,
thread number, and file number. If you want to share
files between threads in a job or several jobs, specify
a filename for each of them to override the default. If
the ioengine used is 'net', the filename is the host, port,
- and protocol to use in the format of =host/port/protocol.
+ and protocol to use in the format of =host,port,protocol.
See ioengine=net for more. If the ioengine is file based, you
can specify a number of files by separating the names with a
':' colon. So if you wanted a job to open /dev/sda and /dev/sdb
as the two working files, you would use
- filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. If the wanted filename does need to
- include a colon, then escape that with a '\' character. For
- instance, if the filename is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would
- use filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c". '-' is a reserved name,
- meaning stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends on the read/write
+ filename=/dev/sda:/dev/sdb. On Windows, disk devices are
+ accessed as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 for the first device,
+ \\.\PhysicalDrive1 for the second etc. Note: Windows and
+ FreeBSD prevent write access to areas of the disk containing
+ in-use data (e.g. filesystems).
+ If the wanted filename does need to include a colon, then
+ escape that with a '\' character. For instance, if the filename
+ is "/dev/dsk/foo@3,0:c", then you would use
+ filename="/dev/dsk/foo@3,0\:c". '-' is a reserved name, meaning
+ stdin or stdout. Which of the two depends on the read/write
direction set.
+filename_format=str
+ If sharing multiple files between jobs, it is usually necessary
+ to have fio generate the exact names that you want. By default,
+ fio will name a file based on the default file format
+ specification of jobname.jobnumber.filenumber. With this
+ option, that can be customized. Fio will recognize and replace
+ the following keywords in this string:
+
+ $jobname
+ The name of the worker thread or process.
+
+ $jobnum
+ The incremental number of the worker thread or
+ process.
+
+ $filenum
+ The incremental number of the file for that worker
+ thread or process.
+
+ To have dependent jobs share a set of files, this option can
+ be set to have fio generate filenames that are shared between
+ the two. For instance, if testfiles.$filenum is specified,
+ file number 4 for any job will be named testfiles.4. The
+ default of $jobname.$jobnum.$filenum will be used if
+ no other format specifier is given.
+
opendir=str Tell fio to recursively add any file it can find in this
directory and down the file system tree.
same time, but writes get exclusive
access.
- The option may be post-fixed with a lock batch number. If
- set, then each thread/process may do that amount of IOs to
- the file before giving up the lock. Since lock acquisition is
- expensive, batching the lock/unlocks will speed up IO.
-
readwrite=str
rw=str Type of io pattern. Accepted values are:
write Sequential writes
randwrite Random writes
randread Random reads
- rw Sequential mixed reads and writes
+ rw,readwrite Sequential mixed reads and writes
randrw Random mixed reads and writes
For the mixed io types, the default is to split them 50/50.
For certain types of io the result may still be skewed a bit,
since the speed may be different. It is possible to specify
- a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset - this
- is only useful for random IO, where fio would normally
- generate a new random offset for every IO. If you append
- eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
+ a number of IO's to do before getting a new offset, this is
+ one by appending a ':<nr>' to the end of the string given.
+ For a random read, it would look like 'rw=randread:8' for
+ passing in an offset modifier with a value of 8. If the
+ suffix is used with a sequential IO pattern, then the value
+ specified will be added to the generated offset for each IO.
+ For instance, using rw=write:4k will skip 4k for every
+ write. It turns sequential IO into sequential IO with holes.
+ See the 'rw_sequencer' option.
+
+rw_sequencer=str If an offset modifier is given by appending a number to
+ the rw=<str> line, then this option controls how that
+ number modifies the IO offset being generated. Accepted
+ values are:
+
+ sequential Generate sequential offset
+ identical Generate the same offset
+
+ 'sequential' is only useful for random IO, where fio would
+ normally generate a new random offset for every IO. If you
+ append eg 8 to randread, you would get a new random offset for
every 8 IO's. The result would be a seek for only every 8
IO's, instead of for every IO. Use rw=randread:8 to specify
- that.
+ that. As sequential IO is already sequential, setting
+ 'sequential' for that would not result in any differences.
+ 'identical' behaves in a similar fashion, except it sends
+ the same offset 8 number of times before generating a new
+ offset.
kb_base=int The base unit for a kilobyte. The defacto base is 2^10, 1024.
Storage manufacturers like to use 10^3 or 1000 as a base
ten unit instead, for obvious reasons. Allow values are
1024 or 1000, with 1024 being the default.
+unified_rw_reporting=bool Fio normally reports statistics on a per
+ data direction basis, meaning that read, write, and trim are
+ accounted and reported separately. If this option is set,
+ the fio will sum the results and report them as "mixed"
+ instead.
+
randrepeat=bool For random IO workloads, seed the generator in a predictable
way so that results are repeatable across repetitions.
+randseed=int Seed the random number generators based on this seed value, to
+ be able to control what sequence of output is being generated.
+ If not set, the random sequence depends on the randrepeat
+ setting.
+
+use_os_rand=bool Fio can either use the random generator supplied by the OS
+ to generator random offsets, or it can use it's own internal
+ generator (based on Tausworthe). Default is to use the
+ internal generator, which is often of better quality and
+ faster.
+
+fallocate=str Whether pre-allocation is performed when laying down files.
+ Accepted values are:
+
+ none Do not pre-allocate space
+ posix Pre-allocate via posix_fallocate()
+ keep Pre-allocate via fallocate() with
+ FALLOC_FL_KEEP_SIZE set
+ 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'
+ 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'posix'
+
+ May not be available on all supported platforms. 'keep' is only
+ available on Linux.If using ZFS on Solaris this must be set to
+ 'none' because ZFS doesn't support it. Default: 'posix'.
+
fadvise_hint=bool By default, fio will use fadvise() to advise the kernel
on what IO patterns it is likely to issue. Sometimes you
want to test specific IO patterns without telling the
limited by other options (such as 'runtime', for instance).
Unless specific nrfiles and filesize options are given,
fio will divide this size between the available files
- specified by the job.
+ specified by the job. If not set, fio will use the full
+ size of the given files or devices. If the the files
+ do not exist, size must be given. It is also possible to
+ give size as a percentage between 1 and 100. If size=20%
+ is given, fio will use 20% of the full size of the given
+ files or devices.
+
+io_limit=int Normally fio operates within the region set by 'size', which
+ means that the 'size' option sets both the region and size of
+ IO to be performed. Sometimes that is not what you want. With
+ this option, it is possible to define just the amount of IO
+ that fio should do. For instance, if 'size' is set to 20G and
+ 'io_limit' is set to 5G, fio will perform IO within the first
+ 20G but exit when 5G have been done.
filesize=int Individual file sizes. May be a range, in which case fio
will select sizes for files at random within the given range
and limited to 'size' in total (if that is given). If not
given, each created file is the same size.
-fill_device=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
+file_append=bool Perform IO after the end of the file. Normally fio will
+ operate within the size of a file. If this option is set, then
+ fio will append to the file instead. This has identical
+ behavior to setting offset to the size of a file. This option
+ is ignored on non-regular files.
+
+fill_device=bool
+fill_fs=bool Sets size to something really large and waits for ENOSPC (no
space left on device) as the terminating condition. Only makes
- sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
- point will be filled first then IO started on the result.
+ sense with sequential write. For a read workload, the mount
+ point will be filled first then IO started on the result. This
+ option doesn't make sense if operating on a raw device node,
+ since the size of that is already known by the file system.
+ Additionally, writing beyond end-of-device will not return
+ ENOSPC there.
blocksize=int
bs=int The block size used for the io units. Defaults to 4k. Values
can be given for both read and writes. If a single int is
given, it will apply to both. If a second int is specified
after a comma, it will apply to writes only. In other words,
- the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write.
- bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, and 8k blocks
- for writes. If you only wish to set the write size, you
+ the format is either bs=read_and_write or bs=read,write,trim.
+ bs=4k,8k will thus use 4k blocks for reads, 8k blocks for
+ writes, and 8k for trims. You can terminate the list with
+ a trailing comma. bs=4k,8k, would use the default value for
+ trims.. If you only wish to set the write size, you
can do so by passing an empty read size - bs=,8k will set
8k for writes and leave the read default value.
may be used as a block range. This typically wont work with
direct IO, as that normally requires sector alignment.
+bs_is_seq_rand If this option is set, fio will use the normal read,write
+ blocksize settings as sequential,random instead. Any random
+ read or write will use the WRITE blocksize settings, and any
+ sequential read or write will use the READ blocksize setting.
+
zero_buffers If this option is given, fio will init the IO buffers to
all zeroes. The default is to fill them with random data.
+ The resulting IO buffers will not be completely zeroed,
+ unless scramble_buffers is also turned off.
refill_buffers If this option is given, fio will refill the IO buffers
on every submit. The default is to only fill it at init
isn't specified, naturally. If data verification is enabled,
refill_buffers is also automatically enabled.
+scramble_buffers=bool If refill_buffers is too costly and the target is
+ using data deduplication, then setting this option will
+ slightly modify the IO buffer contents to defeat normal
+ de-dupe attempts. This is not enough to defeat more clever
+ block compression attempts, but it will stop naive dedupe of
+ blocks. Default: true.
+
+buffer_compress_percentage=int If this is set, then fio will attempt to
+ provide IO buffer content (on WRITEs) that compress to
+ the specified level. Fio does this by providing a mix of
+ random data and zeroes. Note that this is per block size
+ unit, for file/disk wide compression level that matches
+ this setting, you'll also want to set refill_buffers.
+
+buffer_compress_chunk=int See buffer_compress_percentage. This
+ setting allows fio to manage how big the ranges of random
+ data and zeroed data is. Without this set, fio will
+ provide buffer_compress_percentage of blocksize random
+ data, followed by the remaining zeroed. With this set
+ to some chunk size smaller than the block size, fio can
+ alternate random and zeroed data throughout the IO
+ buffer.
+
+buffer_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this pattern.
+ If not set, the contents of io buffers is defined by the other
+ options related to buffer contents. The setting can be any
+ pattern of bytes, and can be prefixed with 0x for hex values.
+
nrfiles=int Number of files to use for this job. Defaults to 1.
openfiles=int Number of files to keep open at the same time. Defaults to
vsync Basic readv(2) or writev(2) IO.
+ psyncv Basic preadv(2) or pwritev(2) IO.
+
libaio Linux native asynchronous io. Note that Linux
may only support queued behaviour with
non-buffered IO (set direct=1 or buffered=0).
+ This engine defines engine specific options.
posixaio glibc posix asynchronous io.
solarisaio Solaris native asynchronous io.
+ windowsaio Windows native asynchronous io.
+
mmap File is memory mapped and data copied
to/from using memcpy(3).
itself and for debugging/testing purposes.
net Transfer over the network to given host:port.
- 'filename' must be set appropriately to
- filename=host/port/protocol regardless of send
- or receive, if the latter only the port
- argument is used. 'host' may be an IP address
- or hostname, port is the port number to be used,
- and protocol may be 'udp' or 'tcp'. If no
- protocol is given, TCP is used.
+ Depending on the protocol used, the hostname,
+ port, listen and filename options are used to
+ specify what sort of connection to make, while
+ the protocol option determines which protocol
+ will be used.
+ This engine defines engine specific options.
netsplice Like net, but uses splice/vmsplice to
map data and send/receive.
+ This engine defines engine specific options.
cpuio Doesn't transfer any data, but burns CPU
cycles according to the cpuload= and
for more info on GUASI.
+ rdma The RDMA I/O engine supports both RDMA
+ memory semantics (RDMA_WRITE/RDMA_READ) and
+ channel semantics (Send/Recv) for the
+ InfiniBand, RoCE and iWARP protocols.
+
+ falloc IO engine that does regular fallocate to
+ simulate data transfer as fio ioengine.
+ DDIR_READ does fallocate(,mode = keep_size,)
+ DDIR_WRITE does fallocate(,mode = 0)
+ DDIR_TRIM does fallocate(,mode = punch_hole)
+
+ e4defrag IO engine that does regular EXT4_IOC_MOVE_EXT
+ ioctls to simulate defragment activity in
+ request to DDIR_WRITE event
+
external Prefix to specify loading an external
IO engine object file. Append the engine
filename, eg ioengine=external:/tmp/foo.o
iodepth=int This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
the file. The default is 1 for each file defined in this
job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
- concurrency.
+ concurrency. Note that increasing iodepth beyond 1 will not
+ affect synchronous ioengines (except for small degress when
+ verify_async is in use). Even async engines may impose OS
+ restrictions causing the desired depth not to be achieved.
+ This may happen on Linux when using libaio and not setting
+ direct=1, since buffered IO is not async on that OS. Keep an
+ eye on the IO depth distribution in the fio output to verify
+ that the achieved depth is as expected. Default: 1.
iodepth_batch_submit=int
iodepth_batch=int This defines how many pieces of IO to submit at once.
the depth drain down to 4 before starting to fill it again.
direct=bool If value is true, use non-buffered io. This is usually
- O_DIRECT.
+ O_DIRECT. Note that ZFS on Solaris doesn't support direct io.
+ On Windows the synchronous ioengines don't support direct io.
+
+atomic=bool If value is true, attempt to use atomic direct IO. Atomic
+ writes are guaranteed to be stable once acknowledged by
+ the operating system. Only Linux supports O_ATOMIC right
+ now.
buffered=bool If value is true, use buffered io. This is the opposite
of the 'direct' option. Defaults to true.
the given offset will not be touched. This effectively
caps the file size at real_size - offset.
+offset_increment=int If this is provided, then the real offset becomes
+ the offset + offset_increment * thread_number, where the
+ thread number is a counter that starts at 0 and is incremented
+ for each job. This option is useful if there are several jobs
+ which are intended to operate on a file in parallel in disjoint
+ segments, with even spacing between the starting points.
+
+number_ios=int Fio will normally perform IOs until it has exhausted the size
+ of the region set by size=, or if it exhaust the allocated
+ time (or hits an error condition). With this setting, the
+ range/size can be set independently of the number of IOs to
+ perform. When fio reaches this number, it will exit normally
+ and report status.
+
fsync=int If writing to a file, issue a sync of the dirty data
for every number of blocks given. For example, if you give
32 as a parameter, fio will sync the file for every 32
not sync the file. The exception is the sg io engine, which
synchronizes the disk cache anyway.
-fsyncdata=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
+fdatasync=int Like fsync= but uses fdatasync() to only sync data and not
metadata blocks.
+ In FreeBSD and Windows there is no fdatasync(), this falls back to
+ using fsync()
+
+sync_file_range=str:val Use sync_file_range() for every 'val' number of
+ write operations. Fio will track range of writes that
+ have happened since the last sync_file_range() call. 'str'
+ can currently be one or more of:
+
+ wait_before SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE
+ write SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE
+ wait_after SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_AFTER
+
+ So if you do sync_file_range=wait_before,write:8, fio would
+ use SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WAIT_BEFORE | SYNC_FILE_RANGE_WRITE for
+ every 8 writes. Also see the sync_file_range(2) man page.
+ This option is Linux specific.
overwrite=bool If true, writes to a file will always overwrite existing
data. If the file doesn't already exist, it will be
and is large enough for the specified write phase, nothing
will be done.
-end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when the job exits.
+end_fsync=bool If true, fsync file contents when a write stage has completed.
fsync_on_close=bool If true, fio will fsync() a dirty file on close.
This differs from end_fsync in that it will happen on every
if fio is asked to limit reads or writes to a certain rate.
If that is the case, then the distribution may be skewed.
+random_distribution=str:float By default, fio will use a completely uniform
+ random distribution when asked to perform random IO. Sometimes
+ it is useful to skew the distribution in specific ways,
+ ensuring that some parts of the data is more hot than others.
+ fio includes the following distribution models:
+
+ random Uniform random distribution
+ zipf Zipf distribution
+ pareto Pareto distribution
+
+ When using a zipf or pareto distribution, an input value
+ is also needed to define the access pattern. For zipf, this
+ is the zipf theta. For pareto, it's the pareto power. Fio
+ includes a test program, genzipf, that can be used visualize
+ what the given input values will yield in terms of hit rates.
+ If you wanted to use zipf with a theta of 1.2, you would use
+ random_distribution=zipf:1.2 as the option. If a non-uniform
+ model is used, fio will disable use of the random map.
+
+percentage_random=int For a random workload, set how big a percentage should
+ be random. This defaults to 100%, in which case the workload
+ is fully random. It can be set from anywhere from 0 to 100.
+ Setting it to 0 would make the workload fully sequential. Any
+ setting in between will result in a random mix of sequential
+ and random IO, at the given percentages. It is possible to
+ set different values for reads, writes, and trim. To do so,
+ simply use a comma separated list. See blocksize.
+
norandommap Normally fio will cover every block of the file when doing
random IO. If this option is given, fio will just get a
new random offset without looking at past io history. This
blocksizes (via bsrange=) are used, since fio only tracks
complete rewrites of blocks.
-softrandommap See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map enabled
- and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is set it
- will continue without a random block map. As coverage will
- not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
+softrandommap=bool See norandommap. If fio runs with the random block map
+ enabled and it fails to allocate the map, if this option is
+ set it will continue without a random block map. As coverage
+ will not be as complete as with random maps, this option is
disabled by default.
+random_generator=str Fio supports the following engines for generating
+ IO offsets for random IO:
+
+ tausworthe Strong 2^88 cycle random number generator
+ lfsr Linear feedback shift register generator
+
+ Tausworthe is a strong random number generator, but it
+ requires tracking on the side if we want to ensure that
+ blocks are only read or written once. LFSR guarantees
+ that we never generate the same offset twice, and it's
+ also less computationally expensive. It's not a true
+ random generator, however, though for IO purposes it's
+ typically good enough. LFSR only works with single
+ block sizes, not with workloads that use multiple block
+ sizes. If used with such a workload, fio may read or write
+ some blocks multiple times.
+
nice=int Run the job with the given nice value. See man nice(2).
prio=int Set the io priority value of this job. Linux limits us to
to sleeping for the rest of the period specified by
thinktime.
-thinktime_blocks
+thinktime_blocks=int
Only valid if thinktime is set - control how many blocks
to issue, before waiting 'thinktime' usecs. If not set,
defaults to 1 which will make fio wait 'thinktime' usecs
- after every block.
+ after every block. This effectively makes any queue depth
+ setting redundant, since no more than 1 IO will be queued
+ before we have to complete it and do our thinktime. In
+ other words, this setting effectively caps the queue depth
+ if the latter is larger.
rate=int Cap the bandwidth used by this job. The number is in bytes/sec,
the normal suffix rules apply. You can use rate=500k to limit
as rate, just specified independently of bandwidth. If the
job is given a block size range instead of a fixed value,
the smallest block size is used as the metric. The same format
- as rate is used for read vs write seperation.
+ as rate is used for read vs write separation.
rate_iops_min=int If fio doesn't meet this rate of IO, it will cause
the job to exit. The same format as rate is used for read vs
- write seperation.
+ write separation.
+
+latency_target=int If set, fio will attempt to find the max performance
+ point that the given workload will run at while maintaining a
+ latency below this target. The values is given in microseconds.
+ See latency_window and latency_percentile
+
+latency_window=int Used with latency_target to specify the sample window
+ that the job is run at varying queue depths to test the
+ performance. The value is given in microseconds.
+
+latency_percentile=float The percentage of IOs that must fall within the
+ criteria specified by latency_target and latency_window. If not
+ set, this defaults to 100.0, meaning that all IOs must be equal
+ or below to the value set by latency_target.
+
+max_latency=int If set, fio will exit the job if it exceeds this maximum
+ latency. It will exit with an ETIME error.
ratecycle=int Average bandwidth for 'rate' and 'ratemin' over this number
of milliseconds.
allows a range of CPUs. Say you wanted a binding to CPUs
1, 5, and 8-15, you would set cpus_allowed=1,5,8-15.
+cpus_allowed_policy=str Set the policy of how fio distributes the CPUs
+ specified by cpus_allowed or cpumask. Two policies are
+ supported:
+
+ shared All jobs will share the CPU set specified.
+ split Each job will get a unique CPU from the CPU set.
+
+ 'shared' is the default behaviour, if the option isn't
+ specified. If split is specified, then fio will will assign
+ one cpu per job. If not enough CPUs are given for the jobs
+ listed, then fio will roundrobin the CPUs in the set.
+
+numa_cpu_nodes=str Set this job running on spcified NUMA nodes' CPUs. The
+ arguments allow comma delimited list of cpu numbers,
+ A-B ranges, or 'all'. Note, to enable numa options support,
+ fio must be built on a system with libnuma-dev(el) installed.
+
+numa_mem_policy=str Set this job's memory policy and corresponding NUMA
+ nodes. Format of the argements:
+ <mode>[:<nodelist>]
+ `mode' is one of the following memory policy:
+ default, prefer, bind, interleave, local
+ For `default' and `local' memory policy, no node is
+ needed to be specified.
+ For `prefer', only one node is allowed.
+ For `bind' and `interleave', it allow comma delimited
+ list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
+
startdelay=time Start this job the specified number of seconds after fio
has started. Only useful if the job file contains several
jobs, and you want to delay starting some jobs to a certain
bwavgtime=int Average the calculated bandwidth over the given time. Value
is specified in milliseconds.
+iopsavgtime=int Average the calculated IOPS over the given time. Value
+ is specified in milliseconds.
+
create_serialize=bool If true, serialize the file creating for the jobs.
This may be handy to avoid interleaving of data
files, which may greatly depend on the filesystem
create_on_open=bool Don't pre-setup the files for IO, just create open()
when it's time to do IO to that file.
+create_only=bool If true, fio will only run the setup phase of the job.
+ If files need to be laid out or updated on disk, only
+ that will be done. The actual job contents are not
+ executed.
+
pre_read=bool If this is given, files will be pre-read into memory before
starting the given IO operation. This will also clear
the 'invalidate' flag, since it is pointless to pre-read
to repeat the same workload a given number of times. Defaults
to 1.
+verify_only Do not perform specified workload---only verify data still
+ matches previous invocation of this workload. This option
+ allows one to check data multiple times at a later date
+ without overwriting it. This option makes sense only for
+ workloads that write data, and does not support workloads
+ with the time_based option set.
+
do_verify=bool Run the verify phase after a write phase. Only makes sense if
verify is set. Defaults to 1.
it in the header of each block.
crc32c-intel Use hardware assisted crc32c calcuation
- provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors.
+ provided on SSE4.2 enabled processors. Falls
+ back to regular software crc32c, if not
+ supported by the system.
crc32 Use a crc32 sum of the data area and store
it in the header of each block.
crc7 Use a crc7 sum of the data area and store
it in the header of each block.
+ xxhash Use xxhash as the checksum function. Generally
+ the fastest software checksum that fio
+ supports.
+
sha512 Use sha512 as the checksum function.
sha256 Use sha256 as the checksum function.
meta Write extra information about each io
(timestamp, block number etc.). The block
- number is verified.
+ number is verified. The io sequence number is
+ verified for workloads that write data.
+ See also verify_pattern.
null Only pretend to verify. Useful for testing
internals with ioengine=null, not for much
This option can be used for repeated burn-in tests of a
system to make sure that the written data is also
- correctly read back.
+ correctly read back. If the data direction given is
+ a read or random read, fio will assume that it should
+ verify a previously written file. If the data direction
+ includes any form of write, the verify will be of the
+ newly written data.
verifysort=bool If set, fio will sort written verify blocks when it deems
it faster to read them back in a sorted manner. This is
size of header_interval. blocksize should divide this
evenly.
-verify_pattern=int If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
+verify_pattern=str If set, fio will fill the io buffers with this
pattern. Fio defaults to filling with totally random
bytes, but sometimes it's interesting to fill with a known
pattern for io verification purposes. Depending on the
width of the pattern, fio will fill 1/2/3/4 bytes of the
- buffer at the time. The verify_pattern cannot be larger than
- a 32-bit quantity.
+ buffer at the time(it can be either a decimal or a hex number).
+ The verify_pattern if larger than a 32-bit quantity has to
+ be a hex number that starts with either "0x" or "0X". Use
+ with verify=meta.
verify_fatal=bool Normally fio will keep checking the entire contents
before quitting on a block verification failure. If this
option is set, fio will exit the job on the first observed
failure.
+verify_dump=bool If set, dump the contents of both the original data
+ block and the data block we read off disk to files. This
+ allows later analysis to inspect just what kind of data
+ corruption occurred. Off by default.
+
verify_async=int Fio will normally verify IO inline from the submitting
thread. This option takes an integer describing how many
async offload threads to create for IO verification instead,
verify_async_cpus=str Tell fio to set the given CPU affinity on the
async IO verification threads. See cpus_allowed for the
format used.
-
-stonewall Wait for preceeding jobs in the job file to exit, before
+
+verify_backlog=int Fio will normally verify the written contents of a
+ job that utilizes verify once that job has completed. In
+ other words, everything is written then everything is read
+ back and verified. You may want to verify continually
+ instead for a variety of reasons. Fio stores the meta data
+ associated with an IO block in memory, so for large
+ verify workloads, quite a bit of memory would be used up
+ holding this meta data. If this option is enabled, fio
+ will write only N blocks before verifying these blocks.
+
+verify_backlog_batch=int Control how many blocks fio will verify
+ if verify_backlog is set. If not set, will default to
+ the value of verify_backlog (meaning the entire queue
+ is read back and verified). If verify_backlog_batch is
+ less than verify_backlog then not all blocks will be verified,
+ if verify_backlog_batch is larger than verify_backlog, some
+ blocks will be verified more than once.
+
+stonewall
+wait_for_previous Wait for preceding jobs in the job file to exit, before
starting this one. Can be used to insert serialization
points in the job file. A stone wall also implies starting
a new reporting group.
-new_group Start a new reporting group. If this option isn't given,
- jobs in a file will be part of the same reporting group
- unless separated by a stone wall (or if it's a group
- by itself, with the numjobs option).
+new_group Start a new reporting group. See: group_reporting.
numjobs=int Create the specified number of clones of this job. May be
used to setup a larger number of threads/processes doing
- the same thing. We regard that grouping of jobs as a
- specific group.
-
-group_reporting If 'numjobs' is set, it may be interesting to display
- statistics for the group as a whole instead of for each
- individual job. This is especially true of 'numjobs' is
- large, looking at individual thread/process output quickly
- becomes unwieldy. If 'group_reporting' is specified, fio
- will show the final report per-group instead of per-job.
+ the same thing. Each thread is reported separately; to see
+ statistics for all clones as a whole, use group_reporting in
+ conjunction with new_group.
+
+group_reporting It may sometimes be interesting to display statistics for
+ groups of jobs as a whole instead of for each individual job.
+ This is especially true if 'numjobs' is used; looking at
+ individual thread/process output quickly becomes unwieldy.
+ To see the final report per-group instead of per-job, use
+ 'group_reporting'. Jobs in a file will be part of the same
+ reporting group, unless if separated by a stonewall, or by
+ using 'new_group'.
thread fio defaults to forking jobs, however if this option is
given, fio will use pthread_create(3) to create threads
io on zones of a file.
write_iolog=str Write the issued io patterns to the specified file. See
- read_iolog.
+ read_iolog. Specify a separate file for each job, otherwise
+ the iologs will be interspersed and the file may be corrupt.
read_iolog=str Open an iolog with the specified file name and replay the
io patterns it contains. This can be used to store a
to replay a workload captured by blktrace. See blktrace
for how to capture such logging data. For blktrace replay,
the file needs to be turned into a blkparse binary data
- file first (blktrace <device> -d file_for_fio.bin).
+ file first (blkparse <device> -o /dev/null -d file_for_fio.bin).
+
+replay_no_stall=int When replaying I/O with read_iolog the default behavior
+ is to attempt to respect the time stamps within the log and
+ replay them with the appropriate delay between IOPS. By
+ setting this variable fio will not respect the timestamps and
+ attempt to replay them as fast as possible while still
+ respecting ordering. The result is the same I/O pattern to a
+ given device, but different timings.
+
+replay_redirect=str While replaying I/O patterns using read_iolog the
+ default behavior is to replay the IOPS onto the major/minor
+ device that each IOP was recorded from. This is sometimes
+ undesirable because on a different machine those major/minor
+ numbers can map to a different device. Changing hardware on
+ the same system can also result in a different major/minor
+ mapping. Replay_redirect causes all IOPS to be replayed onto
+ the single specified device regardless of the device it was
+ recorded from. i.e. replay_redirect=/dev/sdc would cause all
+ IO in the blktrace to be replayed onto /dev/sdc. This means
+ multiple devices will be replayed onto a single, if the trace
+ contains multiple devices. If you want multiple devices to be
+ replayed concurrently to multiple redirected devices you must
+ blkparse your trace into separate traces and replay them with
+ independent fio invocations. Unfortuantely this also breaks
+ the strict time ordering between multiple device accesses.
write_bw_log=str If given, write a bandwidth log of the jobs in this job
file. Can be used to store data of the bandwidth of the
jobs in their lifetime. The included fio_generate_plots
script uses gnuplot to turn these text files into nice
- graphs. See write_log_log for behaviour of given
- filename. For this option, the postfix is _bw.log.
+ graphs. See write_lat_log for behaviour of given
+ filename. For this option, the suffix is _bw.log.
write_lat_log=str Same as write_bw_log, except that this option stores io
- completion latencies instead. If no filename is given
- with this option, the default filename of "jobname_type.log"
- is used. Even if the filename is given, fio will still
- append the type of log. So if one specifies
+ submission, completion, and total latencies instead. If no
+ filename is given with this option, the default filename of
+ "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
+ fio will still append the type of log. So if one specifies
write_lat_log=foo
- The actual log names will be foo_clat.log and foo_slat.log.
- This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs automatically.
+ The actual log names will be foo_slat.log, foo_clat.log,
+ and foo_lat.log. This helps fio_generate_plot fine the logs
+ automatically.
+
+write_iops_log=str Same as write_bw_log, but writes IOPS. If no filename is
+ given with this option, the default filename of
+ "jobname_type.log" is used. Even if the filename is given,
+ fio will still append the type of log.
+
+log_avg_msec=int By default, fio will log an entry in the iops, latency,
+ or bw log for every IO that completes. When writing to the
+ disk log, that can quickly grow to a very large size. Setting
+ this option makes fio average the each log entry over the
+ specified period of time, reducing the resolution of the log.
+ Defaults to 0.
lockmem=int Pin down the specified amount of memory with mlock(2). Can
potentially be used instead of removing memory or booting
with less memory to simulate a smaller amount of memory.
+ The amount specified is per worker.
exec_prerun=str Before running this job, issue the command specified
- through system(3).
+ through system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
+ jobname.prerun.txt.
exec_postrun=str After the job completes, issue the command specified
- though system(3).
+ though system(3). Output is redirected in a file called
+ jobname.postrun.txt.
ioscheduler=str Attempt to switch the device hosting the file to the specified
io scheduler before running.
-cpuload=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, attempt to use the specified
- percentage of CPU cycles.
-
-cpuchunks=int If the job is a CPU cycle eater, split the load into
- cycles of the given time. In microseconds.
-
disk_util=bool Generate disk utilization statistics, if the platform
supports it. Defaults to on.
-disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. Useful
+disable_lat=bool Disable measurements of total latency numbers. Useful
only for cutting back the number of calls to gettimeofday,
as that does impact performance at really high IOPS rates.
Note that to really get rid of a large amount of these
calls, this option must be used with disable_slat and
disable_bw as well.
+disable_clat=bool Disable measurements of completion latency numbers. See
+ disable_lat.
+
disable_slat=bool Disable measurements of submission latency numbers. See
- disable_clat.
+ disable_slat.
disable_bw=bool Disable measurements of throughput/bandwidth numbers. See
- disable_clat.
+ disable_lat.
+
+clat_percentiles=bool Enable the reporting of percentiles of
+ completion latencies.
+
+percentile_list=float_list Overwrite the default list of percentiles
+ for completion latencies. Each number is a floating
+ number in the range (0,100], and the maximum length of
+ the list is 20. Use ':' to separate the numbers, and
+ list the numbers in ascending order. For example,
+ --percentile_list=99.5:99.9 will cause fio to report
+ the values of completion latency below which 99.5% and
+ 99.9% of the observed latencies fell, respectively.
+
+clocksource=str Use the given clocksource as the base of timing. The
+ supported options are:
+
+ gettimeofday gettimeofday(2)
+
+ clock_gettime clock_gettime(2)
+
+ cpu Internal CPU clock source
+
+ cpu is the preferred clocksource if it is reliable, as it
+ is very fast (and fio is heavy on time calls). Fio will
+ automatically use this clocksource if it's supported and
+ considered reliable on the system it is running on, unless
+ another clocksource is specifically set. For x86/x86-64 CPUs,
+ this means supporting TSC Invariant.
gtod_reduce=bool Enable all of the gettimeofday() reducing options
(disable_clat, disable_slat, disable_bw) plus reduce
for doing these time calls will be excluded from other
uses. Fio will manually clear it from the CPU mask of other
jobs.
-continue_on_error=bool Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
+
+continue_on_error=str Normally fio will exit the job on the first observed
failure. If this option is set, fio will continue the job when
there is a 'non-fatal error' (EIO or EILSEQ) until the runtime
is exceeded or the I/O size specified is completed. If this
given in the stats is the first error that was hit during the
run.
+ The allowed values are:
+
+ none Exit on any IO or verify errors.
+
+ read Continue on read errors, exit on all others.
+
+ write Continue on write errors, exit on all others.
+
+ io Continue on any IO error, exit on all others.
+
+ verify Continue on verify errors, exit on all others.
+
+ all Continue on all errors.
+
+ 0 Backward-compatible alias for 'none'.
+
+ 1 Backward-compatible alias for 'all'.
+
+ignore_error=str Sometimes you want to ignore some errors during test
+ in that case you can specify error list for each error type.
+ ignore_error=READ_ERR_LIST,WRITE_ERR_LIST,VERIFY_ERR_LIST
+ errors for given error type is separated with ':'. Error
+ may be symbol ('ENOSPC', 'ENOMEM') or integer.
+ Example:
+ ignore_error=EAGAIN,ENOSPC:122
+ This option will ignore EAGAIN from READ, and ENOSPC and
+ 122(EDQUOT) from WRITE.
+
+error_dump=bool If set dump every error even if it is non fatal, true
+ by default. If disabled only fatal error will be dumped
+
+cgroup=str Add job to this control group. If it doesn't exist, it will
+ be created. The system must have a mounted cgroup blkio
+ mount point for this to work. If your system doesn't have it
+ mounted, you can do so with:
+
+ # mount -t cgroup -o blkio none /cgroup
+
+cgroup_weight=int Set the weight of the cgroup to this value. See
+ the documentation that comes with the kernel, allowed values
+ are in the range of 100..1000.
+
+cgroup_nodelete=bool Normally fio will delete the cgroups it has created after
+ the job completion. To override this behavior and to leave
+ cgroups around after the job completion, set cgroup_nodelete=1.
+ This can be useful if one wants to inspect various cgroup
+ files after job completion. Default: false
+
+uid=int Instead of running as the invoking user, set the user ID to
+ this value before the thread/process does any work.
+
+gid=int Set group ID, see uid.
+
+flow_id=int The ID of the flow. If not specified, it defaults to being a
+ global flow. See flow.
+
+flow=int Weight in token-based flow control. If this value is used, then
+ there is a 'flow counter' which is used to regulate the
+ proportion of activity between two or more jobs. fio attempts
+ to keep this flow counter near zero. The 'flow' parameter
+ stands for how much should be added or subtracted to the flow
+ counter on each iteration of the main I/O loop. That is, if
+ one job has flow=8 and another job has flow=-1, then there
+ will be a roughly 1:8 ratio in how much one runs vs the other.
+
+flow_watermark=int The maximum value that the absolute value of the flow
+ counter is allowed to reach before the job must wait for a
+ lower value of the counter.
+
+flow_sleep=int The period of time, in microseconds, to wait after the flow
+ watermark has been exceeded before retrying operations
+
+In addition, there are some parameters which are only valid when a specific
+ioengine is in use. These are used identically to normal parameters, with the
+caveat that when used on the command line, they must come after the ioengine
+that defines them is selected.
+
+[libaio] userspace_reap Normally, with the libaio engine in use, fio will use
+ the io_getevents system call to reap newly returned events.
+ With this flag turned on, the AIO ring will be read directly
+ from user-space to reap events. The reaping mode is only
+ enabled when polling for a minimum of 0 events (eg when
+ iodepth_batch_complete=0).
+
+[cpu] cpuload=int Attempt to use the specified percentage of CPU cycles.
+
+[cpu] cpuchunks=int Split the load into cycles of the given time. In
+ microseconds.
+
+[cpu] exit_on_io_done=bool Detect when IO threads are done, then exit.
+
+[netsplice] hostname=str
+[net] hostname=str The host name or IP address to use for TCP or UDP based IO.
+ If the job is a TCP listener or UDP reader, the hostname is not
+ used and must be omitted unless it is a valid UDP multicast
+ address.
+
+[netsplice] port=int
+[net] port=int The TCP or UDP port to bind to or connect to.
+
+[netsplice] interface=str
+[net] interface=str The IP address of the network interface used to send or
+ receive UDP multicast
+
+[netsplice] ttl=int
+[net] ttl=int Time-to-live value for outgoing UDP multicast packets.
+ Default: 1
+
+[netsplice] nodelay=bool
+[net] nodelay=bool Set TCP_NODELAY on TCP connections.
+
+[netsplice] protocol=str
+[netsplice] proto=str
+[net] protocol=str
+[net] proto=str The network protocol to use. Accepted values are:
+
+ tcp Transmission control protocol
+ tcpv6 Transmission control protocol V6
+ udp User datagram protocol
+ udpv6 User datagram protocol V6
+ unix UNIX domain socket
+
+ When the protocol is TCP or UDP, the port must also be given,
+ as well as the hostname if the job is a TCP listener or UDP
+ reader. For unix sockets, the normal filename option should be
+ used and the port is invalid.
+
+[net] listen For TCP network connections, tell fio to listen for incoming
+ connections rather than initiating an outgoing connection. The
+ hostname must be omitted if this option is used.
+[net] pingpong Normaly a network writer will just continue writing data, and
+ a network reader will just consume packages. If pingpong=1
+ is set, a writer will send its normal payload to the reader,
+ then wait for the reader to send the same payload back. This
+ allows fio to measure network latencies. The submission
+ and completion latencies then measure local time spent
+ sending or receiving, and the completion latency measures
+ how long it took for the other end to receive and send back.
+ For UDP multicast traffic pingpong=1 should only be set for a
+ single reader when multiple readers are listening to the same
+ address.
+
+[e4defrag] donorname=str
+ File will be used as a block donor(swap extents between files)
+[e4defrag] inplace=int
+ Configure donor file blocks allocation strategy
+ 0(default): Preallocate donor's file on init
+ 1 : allocate space immidietly inside defragment event,
+ and free right after event
+
+
6.0 Interpreting the output
---------------------------
---- ---
P Thread setup, but not started.
C Thread created.
-I Thread initialized, waiting.
+I Thread initialized, waiting or generating necessary data.
p Thread running pre-reading file(s).
R Running, doing sequential reads.
r Running, doing random reads.
M Running, doing mixed sequential reads/writes.
m Running, doing mixed random reads/writes.
F Running, currently waiting for fsync()
+ f Running, finishing up (writing IO logs, etc)
V Running, doing verification of written data.
E Thread exited, not reaped by main thread yet.
-_ Thread reaped.
+_ Thread reaped, or
+X Thread reaped, exited with an error.
+K Thread reaped, exited due to signal.
The other values are fairly self explanatory - number of threads
currently running and doing io, rate of io since last check (read speed
listed first, then write speed), and the estimated completion percentage
and time for the running group. It's impossible to estimate runtime of
-the following groups (if any).
+the following groups (if any). Note that the string is displayed in order,
+so it's possible to tell which of the jobs are currently doing what. The
+first character is the first job defined in the job file, and so forth.
When fio is done (or interrupted by ctrl-c), it will show the data for
each thread, group of threads, and disks in that order. For each data
direction, the output looks like:
Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
- write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, runt= 50320msec
+ write: io= 32MB, bw= 666KB/s, iops=89 , runt= 50320msec
slat (msec): min= 0, max= 136, avg= 0.03, stdev= 1.92
clat (msec): min= 0, max= 631, avg=48.50, stdev=86.82
bw (KB/s) : min= 0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
io= Number of megabytes io performed
bw= Average bandwidth rate
+iops= Average IOs performed per second
runt= The runtime of that thread
slat= Submission latency (avg being the average, stdev being the
standard deviation). This is the time it took to submit
latency, since queue/complete is one operation there. This
value can be in milliseconds or microseconds, fio will choose
the most appropriate base and print that. In the example
- above, milliseconds is the best scale.
+ above, milliseconds is the best scale. Note: in --minimal mode
+ latencies are always expressed in microseconds.
clat= Completion latency. Same names as slat, this denotes the
time from submission to completion of the io pieces. For
sync io, clat will usually be equal (or very close) to 0,
util= The disk utilization. A value of 100% means we kept the disk
busy constantly, 50% would be a disk idling half of the time.
+It is also possible to get fio to dump the current output while it is
+running, without terminating the job. To do that, send fio the USR1 signal.
+You can also get regularly timed dumps by using the --status-interval
+parameter, or by creating a file in /tmp named fio-dump-status. If fio
+sees this file, it will unlink it and dump the current output status.
+
7.0 Terse output
----------------
of the results, fio can output the results in a semicolon separated format.
The format is one long line of values, such as:
-client1;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%
-;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%;0.0%
+2;card0;0;0;7139336;121836;60004;1;10109;27.932460;116.933948;220;126861;3495.446807;1085.368601;226;126864;3523.635629;1089.012448;24063;99944;50.275485%;59818.274627;5540.657370;7155060;122104;60004;1;8338;29.086342;117.839068;388;128077;5032.488518;1234.785715;391;128085;5061.839412;1236.909129;23436;100928;50.287926%;59964.832030;5644.844189;14.595833%;19.394167%;123706;0;7313;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;0.1%;100.0%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.01%;0.02%;0.05%;0.16%;6.04%;40.40%;52.68%;0.64%;0.01%;0.00%;0.01%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%;0.00%
+A description of this job goes here.
-To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option.
+The job description (if provided) follows on a second line.
+
+To enable terse output, use the --minimal command line option. The first
+value is the version of the terse output format. If the output has to
+be changed for some reason, this number will be incremented by 1 to
+signify that change.
Split up, the format is as follows:
- jobname, groupid, error
+ terse version, fio version, jobname, groupid, error
READ status:
- KB IO, bandwidth (KB/sec), runtime (msec)
- Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
- Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
- Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
+ Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
+ Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
+ Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
WRITE status:
- KB IO, bandwidth (KB/sec), runtime (msec)
- Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation
- Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation
- Bw: min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
+ Total IO (KB), bandwidth (KB/sec), IOPS, runtime (msec)
+ Submission latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Completion latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Completion latency percentiles: 20 fields (see below)
+ Total latency: min, max, mean, deviation (usec)
+ Bw (KB/s): min, max, aggregate percentage of total, mean, deviation
CPU usage: user, system, context switches, major faults, minor faults
IO depths: <=1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, >=64
- IO latencies: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, >=2000
- Text description
+ IO latencies microseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000
+ IO latencies milliseconds: <=2, 4, 10, 20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 750, 1000, 2000, >=2000
+ Disk utilization: Disk name, Read ios, write ios,
+ Read merges, write merges,
+ Read ticks, write ticks,
+ Time spent in queue, disk utilization percentage
+ Additional Info (dependent on continue_on_error, default off): total # errors, first error code
+
+ Additional Info (dependent on description being set): Text description
+
+Completion latency percentiles can be a grouping of up to 20 sets, so
+for the terse output fio writes all of them. Each field will look like this:
+
+ 1.00%=6112
+
+which is the Xth percentile, and the usec latency associated with it.
+
+For disk utilization, all disks used by fio are shown. So for each disk
+there will be a disk utilization section.
+
+
+8.0 Trace file format
+---------------------
+There are two trace file format that you can encounter. The older (v1) format
+is unsupported since version 1.20-rc3 (March 2008). It will still be described
+below in case that you get an old trace and want to understand it.
+
+In any case the trace is a simple text file with a single action per line.
+
+
+8.1 Trace file format v1
+------------------------
+Each line represents a single io action in the following format:
+
+rw, offset, length
+
+where rw=0/1 for read/write, and the offset and length entries being in bytes.
+
+This format is not supported in Fio versions => 1.20-rc3.
+
+
+8.2 Trace file format v2
+------------------------
+The second version of the trace file format was added in Fio version 1.17.
+It allows to access more then one file per trace and has a bigger set of
+possible file actions.
+
+The first line of the trace file has to be:
+
+fio version 2 iolog
+
+Following this can be lines in two different formats, which are described below.
+
+The file management format:
+
+filename action
+
+The filename is given as an absolute path. The action can be one of these:
+
+add Add the given filename to the trace
+open Open the file with the given filename. The filename has to have
+ been added with the add action before.
+close Close the file with the given filename. The file has to have been
+ opened before.
+
+
+The file io action format:
+
+filename action offset length
+
+The filename is given as an absolute path, and has to have been added and opened
+before it can be used with this format. The offset and length are given in
+bytes. The action can be one of these:
+
+wait Wait for 'offset' microseconds. Everything below 100 is discarded.
+read Read 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
+write Write 'length' bytes beginning from 'offset'
+sync fsync() the file
+datasync fdatasync() the file
+trim trim the given file from the given 'offset' for 'length' bytes
+
+
+9.0 CPU idleness profiling
+--------------------------
+In some cases, we want to understand CPU overhead in a test. For example,
+we test patches for the specific goodness of whether they reduce CPU usage.
+fio implements a balloon approach to create a thread per CPU that runs at
+idle priority, meaning that it only runs when nobody else needs the cpu.
+By measuring the amount of work completed by the thread, idleness of each
+CPU can be derived accordingly.
+An unit work is defined as touching a full page of unsigned characters. Mean
+and standard deviation of time to complete an unit work is reported in "unit
+work" section. Options can be chosen to report detailed percpu idleness or
+overall system idleness by aggregating percpu stats.