fio: add multi directory support

[fio.git] / fio.1

diff --git a/fio.1 b/fio.1
index aadb5ce2bc84bc2a1f0c761c1e8336d68e506e11..1f3f4dd6b39af7241827fba2a918977af5ae2560 100644 (file)
--- a/fio.1
+++ b/fio.1
@@ -121,12 +121,16 @@ String: a sequence of alphanumeric characters.
 SI integer: a whole number, possibly containing a suffix denoting the base unit
 of the value.  Accepted suffixes are `k', 'M', 'G', 'T', and 'P', denoting
 kilo (1024), mega (1024^2), giga (1024^3), tera (1024^4), and peta (1024^5)
-respectively. The suffix is not case sensitive. If prefixed with '0x', the
-value is assumed to be base 16 (hexadecimal). A suffix may include a trailing 'b',
-for instance 'kb' is identical to 'k'. You can specify a base 10 value
-by using 'KiB', 'MiB', 'GiB', etc. This is useful for disk drives where
-values are often given in base 10 values. Specifying '30GiB' will get you
-30*1000^3 bytes.
+respectively. If prefixed with '0x', the value is assumed to be base 16
+(hexadecimal). A suffix may include a trailing 'b', for instance 'kb' is
+identical to 'k'. You can specify a base 10 value by using 'KiB', 'MiB','GiB',
+etc. This is useful for disk drives where values are often given in base 10
+values. Specifying '30GiB' will get you 30*1000^3 bytes.
+When specifying times the default suffix meaning changes, still denoting the
+base unit of the value, but accepted suffixes are 'D' (days), 'H' (hours), 'M'
+(minutes), 'S' Seconds, 'ms' milli seconds. Time values without a unit specify
+seconds.
+The suffixes are not case sensitive.
 .TP
 .I bool
 Boolean: a true or false value. `0' denotes false, `1' denotes true.
@@ -154,6 +158,12 @@ otherwise has no special purpose.
 .BI directory \fR=\fPstr
 Prefix filenames with this directory.  Used to place files in a location other
 than `./'.
+You can specify a number of directories by separating the names with a ':'
+character. These directories will be assigned equally distributed to job clones
+creates with \fInumjobs\fR as long as they are using generated filenames.
+If specific \fIfilename(s)\fR are set fio will use the first listed directory,
+and thereby matching the  \fIfilename\fR semantic which generates a file each
+clone if not specified, but let all clones use the same if set.
 .TP
 .BI filename \fR=\fPstr
 .B fio
@@ -842,8 +852,12 @@ needed to be specified. For \fBprefer\fR, only one node is
 allowed. For \fBbind\fR and \fBinterleave\fR, \fBnodelist\fR allows
 comma delimited list of numbers, A-B ranges, or 'all'.
 .TP
-.BI startdelay \fR=\fPint
-Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds.
+.BI startdelay \fR=\fPirange
+Delay start of job for the specified number of seconds. Supports all time
+suffixes to allow specification of hours, minutes, seconds and
+milliseconds - seconds are the default if a unit is ommited.
+Can be given as a range which causes each thread to choose randomly out of the
+range.
 .TP
 .BI runtime \fR=\fPint
 Terminate processing after the specified number of seconds.