DataLoader worker RAM at full DataSet size with Mem Map .npy

builder173: <p>My model trains with input/target data stored in numpy arrays. I am working on scaling up to larger training sets and have read that a memory mapped numpy array allows working with arrays larger than available RAM. My end goal is to move this into a TPU environment where I will have less available RAM/core than I have even on my local machine CPU RAM.</p>
<p>What I’m finding in my initial testing is that each data loader worker process seems to end up with a RAM footprint that is the full size of the training dataset. (~7GB) I thought this might have to do with inefficient shuffling approach (requiring all pages accessed or something) but I see the same with shuffle turned off in the dataloader. (Note there are about 28,500 samples/rows in the numpy arrays)</p>
<p>Would appreciate any pointers on where I went wrong with the setup below, thanks. And if the answer differs between this local/CPU set and what would be needed for multi-processing on Colab/GCP TPU setup please let me know. I’m also open to other approaches besides memory mapped arrays. I tried webdataset but the tar file size gets unworkable fast.</p>
<pre><code class="lang-auto">class El80Dataset(Dataset):
    def __init__(self, x_data_path, y_data_path):
        #define constant(s) for raw to model transforms
        self.my_mult = 1.17
        # self.mmapped acts like a numpy array
        self.x_data = np.load(x_data_path, mmap_mode='r+')
        # loading the labels
        self.y_data = np.load(y_data_path, mmap_mode='r+')

    def __len__(self):
        return self.x_data.shape[0]

    def __getitem__(self, idx):
        x_samp = self.my_mult * torch.tensor(self.x_data[idx,None,:])
        y_samp = self.my_mult * torch.tensor(self.y_data[idx])
        #log transform data
        x_samp = torch.log(x_samp + 1)
        y_samp = torch.log(y_samp + 1)
        sample = (x_samp, y_samp)
        return sample
</code></pre>
<pre><code class="lang-auto">#Create train and test data loaders with memory-mapped npy files
x_data_path = datapath / 'training/x_data.npy'
y_data_path = datapath / 'training/y_data.npy'
spec_ds = El80Dataset(x_data_path, y_data_path)

#batch sizes
train_bs = 100
test_bs = 200

#create random split for training and validation
train_len = int(0.8 * len(spec_ds))
test_len = len(spec_ds) - train_len
train_ds, test_ds = random_split(spec_ds,[train_len, test_len])
train_dl = DataLoader(train_ds, batch_size=train_bs, shuffle=True, num_workers=5)
test_dl = DataLoader(test_ds, batch_size=test_bs, num_workers=5)
spec_ds = None
</code></pre>

Adrien_Forbu: <p>I have exactly the same issue.</p>

Adrien_Forbu: <p>Ok I found the issue and solution … Basicly the dataloder when sampling element from the dataset don’t replace its sampling element (because when you train for a full epoch you don’t want to retake the same elements two times for exemple, you want to pass though the integrality of your data).<br>
In the dataloader section their is <img src="https://discuss.pytorch.org/images/emoji/apple/slight_smile.png?v=12" title=":slight_smile:" class="emoji" alt=":slight_smile:" loading="lazy" width="20" height="20"></p>
<pre><code class="lang-python">if self.replacement:
    for _ in range(self.num_samples // 32):
        yield from torch.randint(high=n, size=(32,), dtype=torch.int64, generator=generator).tolist()
    yield from torch.randint(high=n, size=(self.num_samples % 32,), dtype=torch.int64, generator=generator).tolist()
else:
    for _ in range(self.num_samples // n):
        yield from torch.randperm(n, generator=generator).tolist()
    yield from torch.randperm(n, generator=generator).tolist()[:self.num_samples % n]
</code></pre>
<p>The issue is that you have too much element to shuffle … so there is a memory explosion.<br>
What you need to do is this :</p>
<pre><code class="lang-python">rsampler = RandomSampler(dataset, replacement=True, generator=torch.Generator())
batch_sampler = BatchSampler(rsampler, batch_size = 4, drop_last=True)
dataloader = DataLoader(dataset, num_workers=0, batch_sampler=batch_sampler)
</code></pre>

Laubeee: <p>I experience a similar issue.</p>
<p>Could you elaborate why there is memory explosion? <code>randperm()</code> with <code>n=28500</code> should not be an issue at all?</p>

Hostred: <p>This is informative, thanks for sharing.</p>

Hostred: <p>This is informative, thanks for sharing<a href="https://officeally.fun/" rel="noopener nofollow ugc">.</a>.</p>