Disable compression and set ZSTD Compression Level to 1 (#1191)

This PR
- Disables compression. By default, badger does not use any compression.
- Set default ZSTD compression level to 1
    Level 15 is very slow for any practical use of badger.

```
no_compression-16              10	 502848865 ns/op	 165.46 MB/s
zstd_compression/level_1-16     7	 739037966 ns/op	 112.58 MB/s
zstd_compression/level_3-16     7	 756950250 ns/op	 109.91 MB/s
zstd_compression/level_15-16    1	11135686219 ns/op	   7.47 MB/s
```

Author: Ibrahim Jarif

options.go

@@ -21,7 +21,6 @@ import (
 
 	"github.com/dgraph-io/badger/v2/options"
 	"github.com/dgraph-io/badger/v2/table"
-	"github.com/dgraph-io/badger/v2/y"
 )
 
 // Note: If you add a new option X make sure you also add a WithX method on Options.
@@ -102,11 +101,6 @@ type Options struct {
 // DefaultOptions sets a list of recommended options for good performance.
 // Feel free to modify these to suit your needs with the WithX methods.
 func DefaultOptions(path string) Options {
-	defaultCompression := options.ZSTD
-	// Use snappy as default compression algorithm if badger is built without CGO.
-	if !y.CgoEnabled {
-		defaultCompression = options.Snappy
-	}
 	return Options{
 		Dir:                 path,
 		ValueDir:            path,
@@ -129,16 +123,19 @@ func DefaultOptions(path string) Options {
 		CompactL0OnClose:        true,
 		KeepL0InMemory:          true,
 		VerifyValueChecksum:     false,
-		Compression:             defaultCompression,
+		Compression:             options.None,
 		MaxCacheSize:            1 << 30, // 1 GB
-		// Benchmarking compression level against performance showed that level 15 gives
-		// the best speed vs ratio tradeoff.
-		// For a data size of 4KB we get
-		// Level: 3  Ratio: 2.72 Time:  24112 n/s
-		// Level: 10 Ratio: 2.95 Time:  75655 n/s
-		// Level: 15 Ratio: 4.38 Time: 239042 n/s
-		// See https://github.com/dgraph-io/badger/pull/1111#issue-338120757
-		ZSTDCompressionLevel: 15,
+		// The following benchmarks were done on a 4 KB block size (default block size). The
+		// compression is ratio supposed to increase with increasing compression level but since the
+		// input for compression algorithm is small (4 KB), we don't get significant benefit at
+		// level 3.
+		// no_compression-16              10	 502848865 ns/op	 165.46 MB/s	-
+		// zstd_compression/level_1-16     7	 739037966 ns/op	 112.58 MB/s	2.93
+		// zstd_compression/level_3-16     7	 756950250 ns/op	 109.91 MB/s	2.72
+		// zstd_compression/level_15-16    1	11135686219 ns/op	   7.47 MB/s	4.38
+		// Benchmark code can be found in table/builder_test.go file
+		ZSTDCompressionLevel: 1,
+
 		// Nothing to read/write value log using standard File I/O
 		// MemoryMap to mmap() the value log files
 		// (2^30 - 1)*2 when mmapping < 2^31 - 1, max int32.
@@ -561,7 +558,18 @@ func (opt Options) WithInMemory(b bool) Options {
 // The ZSTD compression algorithm supports 20 compression levels. The higher the compression
 // level, the better is the compression ratio but lower is the performance. Lower levels
 // have better performance and higher levels have better compression ratios.
-// The default value of ZSTDCompressionLevel is 15.
+// We recommend using level 1 ZSTD Compression Level. Any level higher than 1 seems to
+// deteriorate badger's performance.
+// The following benchmarks were done on a 4 KB block size (default block size). The compression is
+// ratio supposed to increase with increasing compression level but since the input for compression
+// algorithm is small (4 KB), we don't get significant benefit at level 3. It is advised to write
+// your own benchmarks before choosing a compression algorithm or level.
+//
+// no_compression-16              10	 502848865 ns/op	 165.46 MB/s	-
+// zstd_compression/level_1-16     7	 739037966 ns/op	 112.58 MB/s	2.93
+// zstd_compression/level_3-16     7	 756950250 ns/op	 109.91 MB/s	2.72
+// zstd_compression/level_15-16    1	11135686219 ns/op	   7.47 MB/s	4.38
+// Benchmark code can be found in table/builder_test.go file
 func (opt Options) WithZSTDCompressionLevel(cLevel int) Options {
 	opt.ZSTDCompressionLevel = cLevel
 	return opt

table/builder_test.go

@@ -124,14 +124,42 @@ func BenchmarkBuilder(b *testing.B) {
 	vs := y.ValueStruct{Value: []byte(val)}
 
 	keysCount := 1300000 // This number of entries consumes ~64MB of memory.
-	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
-		opts := Options{BlockSize: 4 * 1024, BloomFalsePositive: 0.01}
-		builder := NewTableBuilder(opts)
 
-		for i := 0; i < keysCount; i++ {
-			builder.Add(key(i), vs, 0)
-		}
+	bench := func(b *testing.B, opt *Options) {
+		// KeyCount * (keySize + ValSize)
+		b.SetBytes(int64(keysCount) * (32 + 32))
+		for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+			opt.BlockSize = 4 * 1024
+			opt.BloomFalsePositive = 0.01
+			builder := NewTableBuilder(*opt)
+
+			for i := 0; i < keysCount; i++ {
+				builder.Add(key(i), vs, 0)
+			}
 
-		_ = builder.Finish()
+			_ = builder.Finish()
+		}
 	}
+
+	b.Run("no compression", func(b *testing.B) {
+		var opt Options
+		opt.Compression = options.None
+		bench(b, &opt)
+	})
+	b.Run("zstd compression", func(b *testing.B) {
+		var opt Options
+		opt.Compression = options.ZSTD
+		b.Run("level 1", func(b *testing.B) {
+			opt.ZSTDCompressionLevel = 1
+			bench(b, &opt)
+		})
+		b.Run("level 3", func(b *testing.B) {
+			opt.ZSTDCompressionLevel = 3
+			bench(b, &opt)
+		})
+		b.Run("level 15", func(b *testing.B) {
+			opt.ZSTDCompressionLevel = 15
+			bench(b, &opt)
+		})
+	})
 }