Memory distribution and stripe size

These memory stripes are then distributed, in round-robin mode, among the NUMA nodes. You can configure the number of NUMA nodes and the stripe size through kernel parameters.

The difference between nodes in assigned memory cannot exceed the stripe size, so configuring small stripes leads to a balanced distribution. Howerer, the stripes must not be too small, otherwise failing memory allocations prevent the kernel from booting. The minimum stripe size depends on the maximum number of CPUs (CONFIG_NR_CPUS) for which the kernel is compiled. For example, 2 CPUs require a minimum size of about 4 MB and 256 CPUs require about 512 MB.

Another approach to achieving a balanced memory distribution is to configure large stripes, such that exactly one stripe is assigned to each NUMA node.