Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!uwvax!rutgers!iuvax!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uxc.cso.uiuc.edu!osiris.cso.uiuc.edu!hoctor
From: hoctor@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Improve response time with paths
Message-ID: <7700038@osiris.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: Thu, 12-Nov-87 08:58:00 EST
Article-I.D.: osiris.7700038
Posted: Thu Nov 12 08:58:00 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 15-Nov-87 08:30:51 EST
References: <15000048@silver>
Lines: 19
Nf-ID: #R:silver:15000048:osiris.cso.uiuc.edu:7700038:000:1028
Nf-From: osiris.cso.uiuc.edu!hoctor    Nov 12 07:58:00 1987


One other consideration is to keep your directories compacted.  Erased
files still take up space in the directory and must be looked at when
searching for a file.  Every disk defragmenter that I know of will
remove these erased entries and compact the directory.  If a directory
is particularly active (many files being created and erased) the 
benefits of compacting is dramatic.  If your path contains a directory
with 2/3 erases entries (not unreasonable if you have never de-fraged)
then the search of that directory could take 3 TIMES as long!

So if you don't want to go through the trouble of RAM disks and
archives, you can greatly enhance performance (of PATH searches,
global disk searches, etc.) by keeping your disk defragmented.
One shareware defrager (SST) even has a command line option so
that it will only compact directories.  If you havn't defraged in some
time, you should try to get SST and use it.  It will display how many
erased entries have been removed; the the numbers can be shocking.

hoctor@osiris