Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.nfs:1916 comp.arch:21360 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) Newsgroups: comp.protocols.nfs,comp.arch Subject: Re: Incremental sync()s and using disk idle time Message-ID: <3236@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Date: 11 Mar 91 13:19:31 GMT References: <28975@cs.yale.edu> <10773@dog.ee.lbl.gov> Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) Followup-To: comp.protocols.nfs Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY Lines: 24 In article <10773@dog.ee.lbl.gov> torek@elf.ee.lbl.gov (Chris Torek) writes: | Sometimes I think we need a Coalition to Stamp Out `Smart' I/O Devices, I think I heard this argument before when operating systems started buffering i/o... I guess what you're looking for is MS-DOS, where you're sure how things work (slowly). As long as there's a working sync or other means for my process to do ordered writes in that less than one percent of the time when I care, I am delighted to have things done in the fastest possible way the rest of the time. The only time I ever care is when doing something like database or T.P. where order counts in case of error. If I'm doing a compile, or save out of an editor, or writing a report, as long as what I read comes back as the same data in the same order, I really don't care about write order (or byte order, bit order, etc) on the disk. There are cases when order is important, but as long as those rare cases are satisfied, any smarts which improve performance as welcome on my system. -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "Most of the VAX instructions are in microcode, but halt and no-op are in hardware for efficiency"