zsmalloc: merge size_class to reduce fragmentation
zsmalloc has many size_classes to reduce fragmentation and they are in 16
bytes unit, for example, 16, 32, 48, etc., if PAGE_SIZE is 4096. And,
zsmalloc has constraint that each zspage has 4 pages at maximum.
In this situation, we can see interesting aspect. Let's think about
size_class for 1488, 1472, ..., 1376. To prevent external fragmentation,
they uses 4 pages per zspage and so all they can contain 11 objects at
maximum.
It means that they have same characteristics and classification between
them isn't needed. If we use one size_class for them, we can reduce
fragementation and save some memory since both the 1488 and 1472 sized
classes can only fit 11 objects into 4 pages, and an object that's 1472
bytes can fit into an object that's 1488 bytes, merging these classes to
always use objects that are 1488 bytes will reduce the total number of
size classes. And reducing the total number of size classes reduces
overall fragmentation, because a wider range of compressed pages can fit
into a single size class, leaving less unused objects in each size class.
For this purpose, this patch implement size_class merging. If there is
size_class that have same pages_per_zspage and same number of objects per
zspage with previous size_class, we don't create new size_class. Instead,
we use previous, same characteristic size_class. With this way, above
example sizes (1488, 1472, ..., 1376) use just one size_class so we can
get much more memory utilization.
Below is result of my simple test.
TEST ENV: EXT4 on zram, mount with discard option WORKLOAD: untar kernel
source code, remove directory in descending order in size. (drivers arch
fs sound include net Documentation firmware kernel tools)
Each line represents orig_data_size, compr_data_size, mem_used_total,
fragmentation overhead (mem_used - compr_data_size) and overhead ratio
(overhead to compr_data_size), respectively, after untar and remove
operation is executed.