Storing 30M records in redis - redis

Question

I'm wondering the most efficient way to store this data.
I need to track 30-50 million data points per day. It needs to be extremely fast read/write, so I'm using redis.
The data only needs to last for 24 hours, at which point it will EXPIRE.
The data looks like this as a key/value hash
{
"statistics:a5ded391ce974a1b9a86aa5322ea9e90": {
xbi: 1,
bid: 0.24024,
xpl: 25.0,
acc: 40,
pid: 43,
cos: 0.025,
xmp: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx",
clu: "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}
}
I've replaced the actual string with a lot of x but that IS the proper length of the string.
So far, according to my calculations.... this will use hundreds of GB of memory. Does that seem correct?
This is mostly ephemeral logging data thats important, but not important enough to try to support writing to disk or failovers. I am comfortable keeping it on 1 machine, if that helps make this easier.
What would be the best way to reduce memory space in this scenario? Is there a better way I can do this? Does redis support 300GB on a single instance?

Answer 1

In redis.conf - set hash-max-ziplist-value to 1 more than the length of the field 'xmp'. Then restart redis, and watch your memory go down significantly.
The default value is 64. Increasing it increases cpu utilization when you modify or add new fields in the hash. But your use case seems to be create-only, and in that case there shouldn't be any drawbacks of increasing the setting.

Answer 2

this will use hundreds of GB of memory. Does that seem correct?
YES
Does redis support 300GB on a single instance?
YES
Is there a better way I can do this?
You can try the following methods:
Avoid Using Hash
Since you always get all fields of the log with HGETALL, there's NO need to save the log as HASH. HASH consumes more memory than STRING.
You can serialize all fields into a string, and save the log as a key-value pair:
SET 'statistics:a5ded391ce974a1b9a86aa5322ea9e90' '{xbi: 1, bid: 0.24024, and other fields}'
#Sripathi Krishnan's answer gives another way to avoid HASH, i.e. config Redis to encode the HASH into ZIPLIST. It's a good idea if you don't share your Redis with other applications. Otherwise, this modification might cause problem to others.
Compress The Data
In order to reduce memory usage, you can try to compress your data. Redis can store binary strings, so you can use gzip, snappy or other compression algorithm to compress the log text into binary string, and save it into Redis.
Normally, you can get better compression when the input is bigger. So you'd better compress the whole log, instead of compress each field one by one.
The side-effect is that the producer and consumer of the log need to cost some CPU to compress and decompress the data. However, normally that's NOT a problem, and also it can reduce some network bandwidth.
Batch Write and Batch Read
As I mentioned above, if you want to get better compression, you should get a bigger input. So if you can write multiple logs in a batch, you can compress the batch of logs to get better compression.
Compress multiple logs into a batch: compress(log1, log2, log3) -> batch1: batch-result
Put the batch result into Redis as a key-value pair: SET batch1 batch-result
Build an index for the batch: MSET log1 batch1 log2 batch1 log3 batch1
When you need to get the log:
Search the index to get the batch key: GET log1 -> batch1
Get the batch result: GET batch1 -> batch-result
Decompress the batch result and look up the log from the result
The last method is the most complicated one, and the extra index will cost some extra memory. However, it can largely reduce the size of your data.
Also what these methods can achieve, largely depends on your log. You should do lots of benchmark :)