RE: [PATCH] nvdimm: Avoid wasting some memory.

[Dan Williams]

Christophe JAILLET wrote:
> sizeof(struct btt_sb) is 4096.
> 
> When using devm_kzalloc(), there is a small memory overhead and, on most
> systems, this leads to 40 bytes of extra memory allocation.
> So 5036 bytes are expected to be allocated.
> 
> The memory allocator works with fixed size hunks of memory. In this case,
> it will require 8192 bytes of memory because more than 4096 bytes are
> required.
> 
> In order to avoid wasting 4ko of memory, just use kzalloc() and add a
> devm action to free it when needed.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Christophe JAILLET <christophe.jaillet@xxxxxxxxxx>
> ---
>  drivers/nvdimm/btt_devs.c | 17 ++++++++++++++++-
>  1 file changed, 16 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
> 
> diff --git a/drivers/nvdimm/btt_devs.c b/drivers/nvdimm/btt_devs.c
> index fabbb31f2c35..7b79fb0b0338 100644
> --- a/drivers/nvdimm/btt_devs.c
> +++ b/drivers/nvdimm/btt_devs.c
> @@ -332,6 +332,11 @@ static int __nd_btt_probe(struct nd_btt *nd_btt,
>  	return 0;
>  }
>  
> +void nd_btt_free(void *data)
> +{
> +	kfree(data);
> +}
> +
>  int nd_btt_probe(struct device *dev, struct nd_namespace_common *ndns)
>  {
>  	int rc;
> @@ -356,7 +361,17 @@ int nd_btt_probe(struct device *dev, struct nd_namespace_common *ndns)
>  	nvdimm_bus_unlock(&ndns->dev);
>  	if (!btt_dev)
>  		return -ENOMEM;
> -	btt_sb = devm_kzalloc(dev, sizeof(*btt_sb), GFP_KERNEL);
> +
> +	/*
> +	 * 'struct btt_sb' is 4096. Using devm_kzalloc() would waste 4 ko of
> +	 * memory because, because of a small memory over head, 8192 bytes
> +	 * would be allocated. So keep this kzalloc()+devm_add_action_or_reset()
> +	 */
> +	btt_sb = kzalloc(sizeof(*btt_sb), GFP_KERNEL);
> +	rc = devm_add_action_or_reset(dev, nd_btt_free, btt_sb);
> +	if (rc)
> +		return rc;

Thanks for the analysis and the patch. However, shouldn't this be
something that is addressed internal to devm_kzalloc() rather than
open-coded at every potential call site?