Differences between disk Cache Write-through and Write-back

目录

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

HANDLING METHOD FOR WRITE-MISSES

FLOWCHARTS

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This post brings you the topic of differences between disk Cache Write-through and Write-back. Please find more information as you read further down the post.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The cache mechanism includes write-through and write-back.

Write-through: Write is done synchronously - both to the cache and to the backing store.

Write-back (or Write-behind): Writing is done only to the cache. A modified cache block is written back to the store, just before it is replaced.

Write-through: When data is updated, it is written to both the cache and the back-end storage. This mode is easy to slow in data writing because data has to be written to both the cache and the storage.

Write-back: When data is updated, it is written only to the cache. The modified data is written to the back-end storage only when data is removed from the cache. This mode has fast data write data will be lost if a power failure occurs before the updated data is written to the storage.

HANDLING METHOD FOR WRITE-MISSES

CPU读Cache时

●若hit，则CPU直接从Cache中读取数据即可。

●若miss，有两种处理方式：

   >Read through，即直接从内存中读取数据；

   >Read allocate，先把数据读取到Cache中，再从Cache中读数据。

写操作

先检查cache里是否有对应数据，如果有（write hit）：

根据是write-back还是write-through来具体操作：

write-back：将数据更新到cache，并不更新到内存（DRAM），待后续flush cache时存入内存；

write-through：数据同时会更新到cache和内存；

如果没有（write miss）：

Two methods are available for handling write-misses.

根据是write-allocate或是write-no-allocate：

write-allocate：将要写入的位置从内存读到cache，然后按照上述write hit继续操作；

write-no-allocate：不会将要写入的数据从内存读到cache，直接将要写的数据写入内存。

Both Write-through and Write-back can use Write allocate or No-write allocate. Typically, Write-back uses Write allocate and Write-through No-write allocate, because Write allocate improves performance for Write-not for Write-through when data is written to one cache for multiple times.

FLOWCHARTS

Figure 1. Write-through flowchart: A Write-through cache with No-write allocate

Figure 2. Write-back flowchart: A Write-back cache with Write