Add more context to the error messages

[fio.git] / HOWTO

diff --git a/HOWTO b/HOWTO
index 8e6e29bbc7dd98e6eb9857596c02de03ebdd0635..237b3ad23879efea84dbe46c69bd6754dc932f1d 100644 (file)
--- a/HOWTO
+++ b/HOWTO
@@ -108,8 +108,8 @@ to use any ascii name you want, except 'global' which has special meaning.
 A global section sets defaults for the jobs described in that file. A job
 may override a global section parameter, and a job file may even have
 several global sections if so desired. A job is only affected by a global
-section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';', the
-entire line is discarded as a comment.
+section residing above it. If the first character in a line is a ';' or a
+'#', the entire line is discarded as a comment.
 
 So lets look at a really simple job file that define to threads, each
 randomly reading from a 128MiB file.
@@ -294,6 +294,13 @@ iodepth=int        This defines how many io units to keep in flight against
                job, can be overridden with a larger value for higher
                concurrency.
 
+iodepth_low=int        The low water mark indicating when to start filling
+               the queue again. Defaults to the same as iodepth, meaning
+               that fio will attempt to keep the queue full at all times.
+               If iodepth is set to eg 16 and iodepth_low is set to 4, then
+               after fio has filled the queue of 16 requests, it will let
+               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.
 
@@ -563,8 +570,8 @@ Client1 (g=0): err= 0:
     bw (KiB/s) : min=    0, max= 1196, per=51.00%, avg=664.02, stdev=681.68
   cpu        : usr=1.49%, sys=0.25%, ctx=7969
   IO depths    : 1=0.1%, 2=0.3%, 4=0.5%, 8=99.0%, 16=0.0%, 32=0.0%, >32=0.0%
-     lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 8=3.2%, 16=12.8%, 32=38.4%, 64=24.8%, 128=15.2%
-     lat (msec): 256=4.0%, 512=0.0%, 1024=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
+     lat (msec): 2=1.6%, 4=0.0%, 10=3.2%, 20=12.8%, 50=38.4%, 100=24.8%,
+     lat (msec): 250=15.2%, 500=0.0%, 750=0.0%, 1000=0.0%, >=2048=0.0%
 
 The client number is printed, along with the group id and error of that
 thread. Below is the io statistics, here for writes. In the order listed,
@@ -598,8 +605,8 @@ IO latencies=       The distribution of IO completion latencies. This is the
                time from when IO leaves fio and when it gets completed.
                The numbers follow the same pattern as the IO depths,
                meaning that 2=1.6% means that 1.6% of the IO completed
-               within 2 msecs, 16=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
-               took more than 8 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 16 msecs.
+               within 2 msecs, 20=12.8% means that 12.8% of the IO
+               took more than 10 msecs, but less than (or equal to) 20 msecs.
 
 After each client has been listed, the group statistics are printed. They
 will look like this: