Chapter 8: Statistics

Statistic

Description

 

 

Sequential Command

In determining whether to perform a readahead or not,

Interval

the controller will search back in the command queue

 

whenever it receives a new read command that is not

 

satisfied by an existing readahead cache buffer. In a

 

multi threaded operating system, commands from one

 

thread can be interspersed with commands from

 

another thread. This requires that the controller not just

 

check the immediately previous command. The

 

controller will search back for a number of commands,

 

to see if the new command is exactly sequential to any

 

one of these previous commands. If it is, then the

 

controller determines that the data access pattern is

 

sequential, and so performs a readahead. These

 

statistics record the average number of commands the

 

controller must search back for when it finds a

 

sequential command match, the maximum number, and

 

also the percentage for each one of these values. These

 

give an indication of the multi threaded nature of the

 

host.

 

 

162

www.gateway.com