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From: vjs@calcite.UUCP (Vernon Schryver)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: why separate filesystems?
Summary: just a nit
Message-ID: <93@calcite.UUCP>
Date: 26 Aug 90 19:37:57 GMT
References: <377@icjapan.uucp> <46649@ism780c.isc.com> <1585@sixhub.UUCP> <1990Aug24.215127.766@ico.isc.com>
Organization: Rhyolite Software, Mountain View, CA
Lines: 20

In article <1990Aug24.215127.766@ico.isc.com>, rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
>      ...   Otherwise you'll
> spend your time seeking back and forth across the unallocated wasteland at
> the end of the first file system to get to the second....


This is more true in under-designed file systems like that in System V.
Many file systems which started with bit-map allocation mechanisms spread
the unalloated wasteland throughout the allocated rubble.  Consider BSD FFS
cylinder groups or the file system of the 1960's Project Genie.

This is just a nit.  I agree with Dick.  Consider the popularity of logical
volumes, where several physical extents are pasted together into the
illusion of a single large file system.  Such games were vital for UNIX
files larger than 2GB (or 4GB if your u_offset is unsigned) before 2GB
drives became cheap.


Vernon Schryver
vjs@calcite.uucp