Caching
BeeGFS clients provide two different file cache modes, settable using the client config option tuneFileCacheType:
- buffered: uses a pool of small static buffers for write-back and read-ahead
- native: uses the Linux kernel page-cache
The buffered mode typically provides higher streaming throughput compared to the native cache mode. The buffered mode will only cache a few hundred kilobytes of a file, while the native mode is able to cache multiple gigabytes, dynamically adapting to the amount of available client RAM.
The native mode is work in progress and marked as experimental. If you enable it, be aware that it could lead to problems.
The buffered mode is the default cache type and it is also the only valid cache type for clients that are running on the same machine as a BeeGFS server daemon.
The cache type can be set in the client config file (/etc/beegfs/beegfs-client.conf).
Note that BeeGFS servers also dynamically use available RAM for caching, independent of the client cache type.
Back to User Guide - Tuning and Advanced Configuration
