What are the main tuned performance profiles?
Profiles map to workloads: balanced (default), powersave, throughput-performance (busy servers), latency-performance (real-time), and virtual-guest/virtual-host for VMs.
The naming tells you the trade-off each one optimizes. Throughput profiles maximize total work done (great for batch/database servers) by keeping CPUs at high frequency and tuning for bandwidth; latency profiles minimize response delay (real-time, trading at the cost of efficiency); powersave does the reverse for laptops. The virtual-* pair tunes a VM as a guest vs. tuning a hypervisor host. balanced is the sensible middle default when you're unsure.
| Profile | Use Case |
|---|---|
balanced |
Default, compromise between power and performance |
powersave |
Maximum power saving |
throughput-performance |
High throughput (servers) |
latency-performance |
Low latency (real-time) |
network-latency |
Low network latency |
network-throughput |
High network throughput |
virtual-guest |
VMs (optimize as guest) |
virtual-host |
VM hosts (optimize hypervisor) |
desktop |
Desktop responsiveness |
View all profiles:
tuned-adm list
Apply profile:
# For a database server
tuned-adm profile throughput-performance
# For a virtual machine
tuned-adm profile virtual-guest
# Get system recommendation
tuned-adm recommend
Tip: Use tuned-adm recommend on new systems - it analyzes hardware and suggests the best profile.