It seems like XFS only allows you to mount a volume with a block size the same as the OS memory PAGE_SIZE. Ideally, I would like to get a better transfer rate from block storage, but I am being limited by the IOPS rate well before my BW limits are hit. I attempted to reform an XFS partition with a large block size but was unable to mount it due to the limitations able.
Is this limit also true of ext4? Does Digital Ocean have ubuntu versions compiled with large kernel PAGE_SIZES available? How would you suggest setting up a droplet for maximum block storage performance?
Thanks!
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Heya,
You’re correct that XFS has a limitation related to the OS memory PAGE_SIZE. However, for ext4, you can choose the block size during the file system creation, and it’s not directly tied to the kernel’s memory PAGE_SIZE. You can use a block size up to 4 KiB for ext4, which is the default on most systems.
Unfortunately, DigitalOcean doesn’t provide specific Ubuntu versions compiled with larger kernel PAGE_SIZE.
To optimize your Droplet for maximum block storage performance, consider the following tips:
- Choose a high-performance Droplet plan with optimized CPU and bandwidth.
- Consider stripping multiple volumes together using RAID0, to aggregate performance across multiple storage devices.
- Use ext4 as the filesystem for better compatibility and performance.
- Regularly monitor your filesystem and disk usage, fine-tune and optimize where possible.
For more information on attaching block storage to your Droplet, refer to the DigitalOcean documentation.
Hope that this helps!
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