Disk Latency, IOPS, Throughput, Queue Depth
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Key Storage Metrics
- Latency: how long ops take (most important for user experience).
- IOPS: operations per second.
- Throughput: MB/s.
- Queue depth: pending ops; rising queues mean saturation.
Collect Evidence
iostat -xz 1 10 2>/dev/null || true # key fields: r/s w/s, await, svctm (if present), %util
Spot Saturation
- Sustained %util ~ 100% with rising await indicates saturated device.
- High await + low util can still happen with remote/network storage issues.
Find Top I/O Processes
pidstat -d 1 10 2>/dev/null || true iotop -oPa 2>/dev/null || true
Filesystem vs Device
df -hT lsblk -f mount | head
Failure Modes
- Log storm: sudden write amplification fills disk and saturates I/O.
- Compaction/backup: background jobs consume IOPS; latency spikes.
- Queue collapse: apps time out, retry, and further increase load.
Mitigations
- Throttle background jobs.
- Move hot paths to faster disks; separate logs from data.
- Reduce sync writes where safe; batch operations.