KVM: Migrate from qcow2 to raw Format

Posted by digo on April 4, 2011 Leave a comment (2) Go to comments

The qcow2 disk format has some decent features like encryption, compression and -- as its abbreviation indicates -- copy to write support. Yet, its growing size is difficult to predict. In addition, the compression and the copy processes make it quite a bit slower than raw disk images. A simple and non-representative benchmark (bonnie++ -b -u root -d /mnt) shows it:

qcow2:

Version  1.96       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency   1     -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
<host>           2G   856  94 33126   7 30392   7  4727  92 739753  70 300.4  20
Latency             51096us    2473ms     972ms    5240us    1516us     382ms
Version  1.96       ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
<host>              -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16    35   0 +++++ +++    46   0    34   0 +++++ +++    44   0
Latency               338ms     808us    2136ms     341ms     155us    2016ms

Raw:

Version  1.96       ------Sequential Output------ --Sequential Input- --Random-
Concurrency   1     -Per Chr- --Block-- -Rewrite- -Per Chr- --Block-- --Seeks--
Machine        Size K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP K/sec %CP  /sec %CP
<host>           2G   885  97 18719  15 75344  70  3993  88 1663036  81 351.6 138
Latency             12763us   34358ms     273ms    4526us     520us     310ms
Version  1.96       ------Sequential Create------ --------Random Create--------
<host>              -Create-- --Read--- -Delete-- -Create-- --Read--- -Delete--
              files  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP  /sec %CP
                 16    35   0 +++++ +++    49   0    35   0 +++++ +++    47   0
Latency              1324ms     797us     915ms     452ms     156us     823ms

So if you're like me and still refrain from using LVM as underlying disk layout but prefer images which can be copied and moved in a quick'n dirty way, you might want to migrate your qcow2 images to raw ones. This article describes the necessary steps.

Shutdown of the VM

First, shutdown the vm which disks you wish to convert:

virsh shutdown {vm_name}

Conversion of the image files

Each of the image files of the virtual machine have to be converted by running the following for the respective files:

qemu-img convert {image_name}.qcow2 {image_name}.raw

Adapt the virtual machine's xml config

Now, two lines of the vm's xml configuration have to be adjusted. Do this by running:

 virsh edit {vm_name}

The lines are:

Change them to match:
Linux
  1. rickytato June 28, 2011 at 17:15

    Have you try with device block? I’m testing in these days a very little system with kvm and block device …

    Reply
    • digo July 8, 2011 at 09:38

      No, in my tests I didn’t compare block devices. I’d be interested in your findings though. Please let me know after you got some numbers!

      Reply

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