SBC question about block coherency

Gerry Houlder gerry.houlder at seagate.com
Mon Nov 14 13:50:36 PST 2011


Formatted message: <a href="http://www.t10.org/cgi-bin/ac.pl?t=r&f=r1111142_f.htm">HTML-formatted message</a>

Option 1 is the expected behavior. From the point of view of the SCSI
target device, commands are not received simultaneously; there will always
be a mechanism that will cause one of the commands to be logged as being
received ahead of the other.
However there can be other influences on that ordering.
(a) Due to system configuration details (e.g., expanders), command might be
sent from a host in one order but received by the target in a different
order.
(b) If all commands are SIMPLE task attribute, they may be reordered once
they are received into the target's queue. I would not expect commands that
access the same LBA to be reordered with respect to each other, but this is
allowed if "unrestricted reordering" is set in the Control mode page. If
"restricted reordering" is set in the mode page instead, then reordering of
writes with respect to reads of the same LBA is not allowed.
(c) A command with HEAD OF QUEUE attribute is usually placed ahead of other
commands that are in the queue. There are exceptions for commands that have
already started processing so there is some gray area here.
On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 11:32 AM, Kevin D Butt <kdbutt at us.ibm.com> wrote:
>  I have a question that seems obvious, but since I come from the tape
> world and have not spent much time in the disk world I could be assuming
> behaviors that I shouldn't.
> In the tape world, if a logical block is overwritten, then the read of
> that logical block cannot occur until after the write has been completed.
> The tape's command queue is essentially an ordered queue. In the disk
> world, as I understand it, many commands can be processed in parallel, that
> is, the queue is not necessarily an ordered queue. So, I have a question
> about what that parallel'ness means when the command arrives with a task
> type of HEAD OF QUEUE.
>
> In the example of a WRITE being issued at the same time as a READ being
> issued for the same LBA from multiple application clients (i.e., in
> different task sets), what should be expected?
>
> Option 1:
> There is an inherent race condition so either the WRITE or the READ
> command will arrive first and be processed as an atomic operation on the
> LBA, then the other command will be processed on the LBA. If the READ
> arrives first the data that is read is the old data. If the write arrives
> first the new data is written and then the read reads the new data.
>
> Option 2:
> There is an inherent race condition so either the WRITE or the READ
> command arrives first, but both commands are processed simultaneously and
> the READ command returns data that contains partially old data and
> partially new data.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Kevin D. Butt
> SCSI & Fibre Channel Architect, Tape Firmware
> Data Protection & Retention
> MS 6TYA, 9000 S. Rita Rd., Tucson, AZ 85744
> Tel: 520-799-5280
> Fax: 520-799-2723 (T/L:321)
> Email address: kdbutt at us.ibm.com
> http://www-03.ibm.com/servers/storage/
>



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