Issue: Slow dataloading with big datasets issue persists
State: closed

Hi,

I reported too slow data fetching when data is large(#2210) a couple of weeks ago, and @lhoestq referred me to the fix (#2122).
However, the problem seems to persist. Here is the profiled results:


1) Running with 60GB
```
Action                             	|  Mean duration (s)	|Num calls      	|  Total time (s) 	|  Percentage %   	|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                              	|  -              	|_              	|  517.96         	|  100 %          	|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
model_backward                     	|  0.26144        	|100            	|  26.144         	|  5.0475         	|
model_forward                      	|  0.11123        	|100            	|  11.123         	|  2.1474         	|
get_train_batch                    	|  0.097121       	|100            	|  9.7121         	|  1.8751         	|
```


3) Running with 600GB, datasets==1.6.0
```
Action                             	|  Mean duration (s)	|Num calls      	|  Total time (s) 	|  Percentage %   	|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                              	|  -              	|_              	|  4563.2         	|  100 %          	|
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
get_train_batch                    	|  5.1279         	|100            	|  512.79         	|  11.237         	|
model_backward                     	|  4.8394         	|100            	|  483.94         	|  10.605         	|
model_forward                      	|  0.12162        	|100            	|  12.162         	|  0.26652        	|
```

I see that `get_train_batch` lags when data is large. Could this be related to different issues?
I would be happy to provide necessary information to investigate.

Hi ! Sorry to hear that. This may come from another issue then.

First can we check if this latency comes from the dataset itself ?
You can try to load your dataset and benchmark the speed of querying random examples inside it ?
```python
import time
import numpy as np

from datasets import load_from_disk

dataset = load_from_disk(...) # or from load_dataset...

_start = time.time()
n = 100
for i in np.random.default_rng(42).integers(0, len(dataset), size=n):
    _ = dataset[i]
print(time.time() - _start)
```

If we see a significant speed difference between your two datasets then it would mean that there's an issue somewhere

Hi @lhoestq, here is the result. I additionally measured time to `load_from_disk`:
* 60GB
```
loading took:  22.618776321411133
ramdom indexing 100 times took: 0.10214924812316895
```

* 600GB
```
loading took:  1176.1764674186707
ramdom indexing 100 times took: 2.853600025177002
```

Hmm.. I double checked that it's version 1.6.0. The difference seems quite big, could it be related to the running environment? 


I'm surprised by the speed change. Can you give more details about your dataset ?
The speed depends on the number of batches in the arrow tables and the distribution of the lengths of the batches.
You can access the batches by doing `dataset.data.to_batches()` (use only for debugging) (it doesn't bring data in memory).

Also can you explain what parameters you used if you used `map` calls ?
Also if you have some code that reproduces the issue I'd be happy to investigate it.

Also if you could give us more info about your env like your OS, version of pyarrow and if you're using an HDD or a SSD

Here are some details of my 600GB dataset. This is a dataset AFTER the `map` function and once I load this dataset, I do not use `map` anymore in the training. Regarding the distribution of the lengths, it is almost uniform (90% is 512 tokens, and 10% is randomly shorter than that -- typical setting for language modeling).
```
len(batches):
492763

batches[0]: 
pyarrow.RecordBatch
attention_mask: list<item: uint8>
  child 0, item: uint8
input_ids: list<item: int16>
  child 0, item: int16
special_tokens_mask: list<item: uint8>
  child 0, item: uint8
token_type_ids: list<item: uint8>
  child 0, item: uint8
```

Here the some parameters to `map` function just in case it is relevant:
```
num_proc=1    # as multi processing is slower in my case
load_from_cache_file=False
```


Regarding the environment, I am running the code on a cloud server. Here are some info:
```
Ubuntu 18.04.5 LTS   # cat /etc/issue
pyarrow                 3.0.0  # pip list | grep pyarrow
```
The data is stored in SSD and it is mounted to the machine via Network File System.

If you could point me to some of the commands to check the details of the environment, I would be happy to provide relevant information @lhoestq !

I am not sure how I could provide you with the reproducible code, since the problem only arises when the data is big. For the moment, I would share the part that I think is relevant. Feel free to ask me for more info.

```python
class MyModel(pytorch_lightning.LightningModule)
    def setup(self, stage):
        self.dataset = datasets.load_from_disk(path)
        self.dataset.set_format("torch")

    def train_dataloader(self):
        collate_fn = transformers.DataCollatorForLanguageModeling(
                tokenizer=transformers.ElectraTokenizerFast.from_pretrained(tok_path)
        )
        dataloader = torch.utils.DataLoader(
                self.dataset,
                batch_size=32,
                collate_fn=collate_fn,
                num_workers=8,
                pin_memory=True,
       )
```

Hi ! Sorry for the delay I haven't had a chance to take a look at this yet. Are you still experiencing this issue ?
I'm asking because the latest patch release 1.6.2 fixed a few memory issues that could have lead to slow downs

Hi! I just ran the same code with different datasets (one is 60 GB and another 600 GB), and the latter runs much slower. ETA differs by 10x.

@lhoestq and @hwijeen

Despite upgrading to datasets 1.6.2, still experiencing extremely slow (2h00) loading for a 300Gb local dataset shard size 1.1Gb on local HDD (40Mb/s read speed). This corresponds almost exactly to total data divided by reading speed implying that it reads the entire dataset at each load.

Stack details:
=========

> GCC version: Could not collect
> Clang version: Could not collect
> CMake version: Could not collect
> 
> Python version: 3.7 (64-bit runtime)
> Is CUDA available: True
> CUDA runtime version: 10.2.89
> GPU models and configuration: GPU 0: GeForce GTX 1050
> Nvidia driver version: 457.63
> cuDNN version: C:\Program Files\NVIDIA GPU Computing Toolkit\CUDA\v10.2\bin\cudnn64_7.dll
> HIP runtime version: N/A
> MIOpen runtime version: N/A
> 
> Versions of relevant libraries:
> [pip3] datasets==1.6.2
> [pip3] transformers==4.5.1
> [pip3] numpy==1.19.1
> [pip3] numpydoc==1.1.0
> [pip3] pytorch-metric-learning==0.9.98
> [pip3] torch==1.8.1
> [pip3] torchaudio==0.8.1
> [pip3] torchvision==0.2.2
> [conda] blas                      2.16                        mkl    conda-forge
> [conda] cudatoolkit               10.2.89              hb195166_8    conda-forge
> [conda] libblas                   3.8.0                    16_mkl    conda-forge
> [conda] libcblas                  3.8.0                    16_mkl    conda-forge
> [conda] liblapack                 3.8.0                    16_mkl    conda-forge
> [conda] liblapacke                3.8.0                    16_mkl    conda-forge
> [conda] mkl                       2020.1                      216
> [conda] numpy                     1.19.1           py37hae9e721_0    conda-forge
> [conda] numpydoc                  1.1.0                      py_1    conda-forge
> [conda] pytorch                   1.8.1           py3.7_cuda10.2_cudnn7_0    pytorch
> [conda] pytorch-metric-learning   0.9.98             pyh39e3cac_0    metric-learning
> [conda] torchaudio                0.8.1                      py37    pytorch
> [conda] torchvision               0.2.2                      py_3    pytorch

Hi @BenoitDalFerro how do your load your dataset ?

Hi @lhoestq thanks for the quick turn-around, actually the plain vanilla way, without an particular knack or fashion, I tried to look into the documentation for some alternative but couldn't find any

> dataset = load_from_disk(dataset_path=os.path.join(datasets_dir,dataset_dir))

I’m facing the same issue when loading a 900GB dataset (stored via `save_to_disk`): `load_from_disk(path_to_dir)` takes 1.5 hours and htop consistently shows high IO rates > 120 M/s.

@tsproisl same here, smells like ~~teen spirit~~ intended generator inadvertently ending up iterator

@lhoestq perhaps solution to detect bug location in code is to track its signature via HD read usage monitoring, option is to add tracking decorator on top each function and sequentially close all hatches from top to bottom, suggest PySmart https://pypi.org/project/pySMART/ a Smartmontools implementation

I wasn't able to reproduce this on a toy dataset of around 300GB:

```python
import datasets as ds

s = ds.load_dataset("squad", split="train")
s4000 = ds.concatenate_datasets([s] * 4000)
print(ds.utils.size_str(s4000.data.nbytes))  # '295.48 GiB'

s4000.save_to_disk("tmp/squad_4000")
```

```python
import psutil
import time
from datasets import load_from_disk

disk = "disk0"  # You may have to change your disk here
iocnt1 = psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=True)[disk]
time1 = time.time()

s4000_reloaded = load_from_disk("tmp/squad_4000")

time2 = time.time()
iocnt2 = psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=True)[disk]

print(f"Blocks read {iocnt2.read_count - iocnt1.read_count}")  # Blocks read 18
print(f"Elapsed time: {time2 - time1:.02f}s")  # Elapsed time: 14.60s
```

Could you run this on your side and tell me if how much time it takes ? Please run this when your machine is idle so that other processes don't interfere.

I got these results on my macbook pro on datasets 1.6.2

@lhoestq thanks, test running as we speak, bear with me

Just tried on google colab and got ~1min for a 15GB dataset (only 200 times SQuAD), while it should be instantaneous. The time is spent reading the Apache Arrow table from the memory mapped file. This might come a virtual disk management issue. I'm trying to see if I can still speed it up on colab.

@lhoestq what is Google Colab's HD read speed, is it possible to introspect incl. make like SSD or HDD ?

@lhoestq Thank you! The issue is getting more interesting. The second script is still running, but it's definitely taking much longer than 15 seconds.

Okay, here’s the ouput:
Blocks read 158396
Elapsed time: 529.10s

Also using datasets 1.6.2. Do you have any ideas, how to pinpoint the problem?

@lhoestq, @tsproisl mmmh still writing on my side about 1h to go, thinking on it are your large datasets all monoblock unsharded ? mine is 335 times 1.18Gb shards.

The 529.10s was a bit too optimistic. I cancelled the reading process once before running it completely, therefore the harddrive cache probably did its work.

Here are three consecutive runs
First run (freshly written to disk):
Blocks read 309702
Elapsed time: 1267.74s
Second run (immediately after):
Blocks read 113944
Elapsed time: 417.55s
Third run (immediately after):
Blocks read 42518
Elapsed time: 199.19s


@lhoestq 
First test
> elapsed time: 11219.05s

Second test running bear with me, for Windows users slight trick to modify original "disk0" string:

First find physical unit relevant key in dictionnary
```
import psutil
psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=True)
```

> {'PhysicalDrive0': sdiskio(read_count=18453286, write_count=4075333, read_bytes=479546467840, write_bytes=161590275072, read_time=20659, write_time=2464),
>  'PhysicalDrive1': sdiskio(read_count=1495778, write_count=388781, read_bytes=548628622336, write_bytes=318234849280, read_time=426066, write_time=19085)}

In my case it's _PhysicalDrive1_

Then insert relevant key's string as _disk_ variable

```
psutil.disk_io_counters()
disk = 'PhysicalDrive1'  # You may have to change your disk here
iocnt1 = psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=True)[disk]
time1 = time.time()
s4000_reloaded = load_from_disk("your path here")
time2 = time.time()
iocnt2 = psutil.disk_io_counters(perdisk=True)[disk]
print(f"Blocks read {iocnt2.read_count - iocnt1.read_count}")  # Blocks read 18
print(f"Elapsed time: {time2 - time1:.02f}s")  # Elapsed time: 14.60s
```

@lhoestq
Second test

> Blocks read 1265609
> Elapsed time: 11216.55s

@lhoestq any luck ?

Unfortunately no. Thanks for running the benchmark though, it shows that you machine does a lot of read operations. This is not expected: in other machines it does almost no read operations which enables a very fast loading.

I did some tests on google colab and have the same issue. The first time the dataset arrow file is memory mapped takes always a lot of time (time seems linear with respect to the dataset size). Reloading the dataset is then instantaneous since the arrow file has already been memory mapped.

I also tried using the Arrow IPC file format (see #1933) instead of the current streaming format that we use but it didn't help.

Memory mapping is handled by the OS and depends on the disk you're using, so I'm not sure we can do much about it. I'll continue to investigate anyway, because I still don't know why in some cases it would go through the entire file (high `Blocks read ` as in your tests) and in other cases it would do almost no reading.

@lhoestq thanks for the effort, let's stay in touch

Just want to say that I am seeing the same issue. Dataset size if 268GB and it takes **3 hours** to load `load_from_disk`, using dataset version `1.9.0`. Filesystem underneath is `Lustre` 

Hi @lhoestq, confirmed Windows issue, exact same code running on Linux OS total loading time about 3 minutes.

Hmm that's different from what I got. I was on Ubuntu when reporting the initial issue.