ritepage: bdi 253:16: towrt=1023 skip=0 mode=0 kupd=0 bgrd=1 reclm=0 cyclic=1 more=0 older=0x0 start=0x0 end=0x0 flush-253:16-8516 [000] 1342952.369520: wbc_writepage: bdi 253:16: towrt=0 skip=0 mode=0 kupd=0 bgrd=1 reclm=0 cyclic=1 more=0 older=0x0 start=0x0 end=0x0 flush-253:16-8516 [000] 1342952.369542: wbc_writepage: bdi 253:16: towrt=-1 skip=0 mode=0 kupd=0 bgrd=1 reclm=0 cyclic=1 more=0 older=0x0 start=0x0 end=0x0 flush-253:16-8516 [000] 1342952.369549: wbc_writepage: bdi 253:16: towrt=-2 skip=0 mode=0 kupd=0 bgrd=1 reclm=0 cyclic=1 more=0 older=0x0 start=0x0 end=0x0 Writeback is not terminating in background writeback if ->writepage is returning with wbc->nr_to_write == 0, resulting in sub-optimal single page writeback on XFS. Fix the write_cache_pages loop to terminate correctly when this situation occurs and so prevent this sub-optimal background writeback pattern. This improves sustained sequential buffered write performance from around 250MB/s to 750MB/s for a 100GB file on an XFS filesystem on my 8p test VM. Cc: Signed-off-by: Dave Chinner Reviewed-by: Wu Fengguang Reviewed-by: Christoph Hellwig §