QEMU's default qcow2 L2 cache size is too small for large images (and small cluster
sizes), resulting in very bad performance.
https://blogs.igalia.com/berto/2015/12/17/improving-disk-io-performance-i...
shows huge performance hit for a 20GB qcow2 with default 64kB cluster size:
L2 Cache, MiB Average IOPS
1 (default) 5100
1.5 7300
2 12700
2.5 63600
The above link also gives the formula:
optimal L2 cache size = L2 table size = (8 Byte) * (disk size) / (cluster size)
and the QEMU command line for setting L2 cache size, which is not persistent, but must be
specified at each invocation:
qemu-system-x86_64 -drive file=hd.qcow2,l2-cache-size=2621440
I'd like to set the l2-cache-size in libvirt xml, but cannot make out how to do it.
There are only hints in the comments at the above link and at
http://wiki.libvirt.org/page/QEMUSwitchToLibvirt
and an earlier unanswered question on this list
https://www.redhat.com/archives/libvirt-users/2016-February/msg00036.html
Has anyone successfully done this, and could you please give an example of the actual
libvirt xml used?
Thanks!
Frank