Re: [RFC][PATCH 3/8] mm/vmscan: Attempt to migrate page in lieu of discard

From: David Rientjes
Date: Wed Jul 01 2020 - 15:50:27 EST


On Wed, 1 Jul 2020, Dave Hansen wrote:

> Even if they don't allocate directly from PMEM, is it OK for such an app
> to get its cold data migrated to PMEM? That's a much more subtle
> question and I suspect the kernel isn't going to have a single answer
> for it. I suspect we'll need a cpuset-level knob to turn auto-demotion
> on or off.
>

I think the answer is whether the app's cold data can be reclaimed,
otherwise migration to PMEM is likely better in terms of performance. So
any such app today should just be mlocking its cold data if it can't
handle overhead from reclaim?