The AHCI spec allows implementations to issue commands in tag order
rather than FIFO order:
5.3.2.12 P:SelectCmd
HBA sets pSlotLoc = (pSlotLoc + 1) mod (CAP.NCS + 1)
or HBA selects the command to issue that has had the
PxCI bit set to '1' longer than any other command
pending to be issued.
The result is that commands posted sequentially (time-wise) may play out
of sequence when issued by hardware.
This behavior has likely been hidden by drives that arrange for commands
to complete in issue order. However, it appears recent drives (two from
different vendors that we have found so far) inflict out-of-order
completions as a matter of course. So, we need to take care to maintain
ordered submission, otherwise we risk triggering a drive to fall out of
sequential-io automation and back to random-io processing, which incurs
large latency and degrades throughput.
This issue was found in simple benchmarks where QD=2 seq-write
performance was 30-50% *greater* than QD=32 seq-write performance.
Tagging for -stable and making the change globally since it has a low
risk-to-reward ratio. Also, word is that recent versions of an unnamed
OS also does it this way now. So, drives in the field are already
experienced with this tag ordering scheme.
Cc: <stable@vger.kernel.org>
Cc: Dave Jiang <dave.jiang@intel.com>
Cc: Ed Ciechanowski <ed.ciechanowski@intel.com>
Reviewed-by: Matthew Wilcox <matthew.r.wilcox@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Dan Williams <dan.j.williams@intel.com>
Signed-off-by: Tejun Heo <tj@kernel.org>
