Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!ispi!jbayer
From: jbayer@ispi.UUCP (Jonathan Bayer)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.xenix
Subject: packdisk on Xenix
Keywords: packdisk xenix
Message-ID: <1191@ispi.UUCP>
Date: 20 Oct 89 01:42:07 GMT
Organization: Intelligent Software Products, Inc.
Lines: 25


I just ran Karl Denninger's port of packdisk on my xenix system.  On my
root filesystem, running packdisk from a bootable/root floppy, packdisk
wasn't able to allocate enough memory for the entire inode list, so it
ran a bit slower (according to it's message).  On a 72 meg partition,
88% full, it took 3 hours, 9 minutes, 36 seconds.  This partition has
been in existance for about a year without being emptied and reloaded. 
Karl did a very good job in the port.  

My only feelings is that it is faster to do a complete backup, verify,
mkfs, and restore of a filesystem than it is to run packdisk.  Packdisk
has the advantage of not needing anybody standing by, but the filesystem
should still be backed up first.  I should note that running packdisk on
a filesystem that is not too fragmented does go much faster.  If
packdisk is run regularly then it is faster than the backup and restore
cycle I described above.

My complements to Rick Richardson for an excellent program.


JB
-- 
Jonathan Bayer		Intelligent Software Products, Inc.
(201) 245-5922		500 Oakwood Ave.
jbayer@ispi.COM		Roselle Park, NJ   07204