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From: michaelv@MindBender.HeadCandy.com (Michael L. VanLoon)
Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.os.linux.advocacy
Subject: Re: Best platform for INN server?
Date: 04 Mar 1995 05:22:04 GMT
Organization: HeadCandy Associates... Sweets for the lobes.
Lines: 41
Message-ID: <MICHAELV.95Mar3212204@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
References: <199503020229.SAA11325@kitana.org>
	<MICHAELV.95Mar1233040@MindBender.HeadCandy.com>
	<3j657b$j2d@sundog.tiac.net> <1995Mar3.140152.14952@wavehh.hanse.de>
NNTP-Posting-Host: mindbender.seanet.com
In-reply-to: cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de's message of Fri, 3 Mar 95 14:01:52 GMT

In article <1995Mar3.140152.14952@wavehh.hanse.de> cracauer@wavehh.hanse.de (Martin Cracauer) writes:

   Linux does not write out metainformation for filesystems synchronously
   (Note: of course normal write if buffered in every UNIX, but
   metainformation like inodes is not). That means performance for
   writing large files is equivalent, but writing many small files like
   it is the case for news partitions is much faster, up to a factor of 3
   on my SunOS box.

   As far as I know Linux is the only UNIX-like system that has this as
   default, but in FreeBSD you have a mount option for this and in SunOS
   you can change even a mounted filesystem with an unducumented
   ioctl(). 

Actually, you can do this on NetBSD, also.

But you do it at your own risk.  If your machine would crash for some
reason, like even a flicker in the power, your disk is going to
essentially be toast.

I keep the default on my NetBSD news server, and I have no lack of
disk performance, regardless.  Get decent disks and a nice PCI, VLB,
or EISA controller, and the small penalty you get in performance is
negligible compared to the extra safety you have in a solid
filesystem.

Incidentally, when I first set the system up, there was a bug in the
NCR driver, which caused the machine to crash a few times.  This was
with a heavy newsfeed.  I never lost any files.  Turning off the
synchronous writing of metadata would probably have been disastrous.
(The NCR bug has long since been fixed, btw.  It was simply a very
early version of the NCR SCSI driver.)

--
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  Michael L. VanLoon                                 michaelv@HeadCandy.com
       --<  Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x  >--
     NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac, Amiga, HP300, Sun3, Sun4, PC532,
                           DEC pmax (MIPS R2k/3k), DEC/AXP (Alpha)
     NetBSD ports in progress: VAX and others...
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