Nginx cache is slow

Nginx 1.1.0

location / {
uwsgi_cache tna;
uwsgi_cache_use_stale error timeout http_500;
uwsgi_cache_valid any 10m;
uwsgi_cache_key $request_uri;

include /etc/nginx/params_uwsgi;
uwsgi_intercept_errors off;
uwsgi_pass unix:/tmp/uwsgi-tna.sock;
}

I made a simple test: $ ab -c 10 -n 10000 http://… on localhost.
I am sure that the request is sent to uWSGI only once and is then
cached.
result: Requests per second: 3712.93 [#/sec] (mean)

Meanwhile, on the same machine and the same nginx for static file
reaches the result:
Requests per second: 4826.62 [#/sec] (mean)

How is that static files are faster to 30%! from the cache based on
static files ?

Posted at Nginx Forum:

Hello!

On Fri, Aug 19, 2011 at 03:58:09AM -0400, ddarko wrote:

uwsgi_pass unix:/tmp/uwsgi-tna.sock;

How is that static files are faster to 30%! from the cache based on
static files ?

Cached response require additional reading of original response
headers, as well as calculating cache key and parsing the headers
in question (which may be an issue on cpu-bound servers). So I
would expect it to be somewhat slower than plain static files.

While 30% looks a bit too many, it certainly depens havily on
response sizes involved as well as type of a limiting factor (i.e.
cpu or disk bound). In worst case I would expect cache to be 2x
slower compared to static files (though it’s unlikely to happen in
real life).

Maxim D.