@@ -529,6 +529,25 @@ messages </reference/log-messages>` include
529529
530530 Number of bytes read by the operation from the disk to the cache.
531531
532+ Data read from disk into the cache includes everything needed
533+ to execute the query. If the data is already in the cache,
534+ then the number of bytes read from disk could be ``0``.
535+
536+ The number of bytes read from disk includes more than the
537+ queried documents:
538+
539+ * WiredTiger reads in units of pages and a page may contain one or
540+ several documents. If a document is in a page, all documents in that
541+ page are read into the cache and included in the ``bytesRead`` value.
542+
543+ * If the cache requires page management (such as eviction or rereads),
544+ the ``bytesRead`` value includes data read from disk
545+ in these operations.
546+
547+ * If the index is not in the cache or the index in the cache is stale,
548+ WiredTiger reads several internal and leaf pages from disk to
549+ reconstruct the index in cache.
550+
532551 .. data:: system.profile.storage.data.timeReadingMicros
533552
534553 .. versionadded:: 4.0.9
@@ -543,6 +562,17 @@ messages </reference/log-messages>` include
543562 Number of bytes written by the operation from the cache to the
544563 disk.
545564
565+ WiredTiger typically doesn't require the query to write to disk.
566+ Data modified by the query is written to an in-memory cache that
567+ WiredTiger flushes to disk as part an eviction or checkpoint
568+ operation. In such cases, ``bytesWritten`` shows as 0.
569+
570+ If the thread running the query requires forced page management
571+ (such as eviction), WiredTiger writes the page contents to disk.
572+ This flush likely includes data unrelated to changes made by the
573+ query itself, which can cause ``bytesWritten`` to show
574+ a higher value than expected.
575+
546576 .. data:: system.profile.storage.data.timeWritingMicros
547577
548578 .. versionadded:: 4.0.9
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