From owner-freebsd-hackers Thu Feb 1 20:44:35 1996 Return-Path: owner-hackers Received: (from root@localhost) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) id UAA08588 for hackers-outgoing; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:44:35 -0800 (PST) Received: from bluewhale.emergent.com (bluewhale.emergent.com [140.174.2.161]) by freefall.freebsd.org (8.7.3/8.7.3) with SMTP id UAA08572 for ; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:44:27 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by bluewhale.emergent.com (8.6.11/8.6.12) with SMTP id UAA00420 for ; Thu, 1 Feb 1996 20:44:26 -0800 Message-Id: <199602020444.UAA00420@bluewhale.emergent.com> X-Authentication-Warning: bluewhale.emergent.com: Host localhost didn't use HELO protocol To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Watchdog timers (was: Re: Multi-Port Async Cards) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 01 Feb 1996 11:17:12 CST." <199602011717.LAA09086@brasil.moneng.mei.com> Date: Thu, 01 Feb 1996 20:44:26 -0800 From: Curt Mayer Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org Precedence: bulk > > Optional: NVram for acceleration of NFS &c. sockets > > and a battery for 4-8 Mb ram. Possibly with a little > > clock to do refresh so DRAM could be used. (cheaper) > > This is something we NEED, in order to do any sort of serious NFS service. > PrestoServe style devices are handy in many scenarios in addition to NFS - > news servers and other systems where lots of metadata updates are happening. wrong. this is a trivial way to speed up metadata writes. there is a software-only way called using an intent log. A once-boss of mine has a nfs fileserver that uses a homebrew filesystem running in user space on a cluster of pc's running freebsd that eats an auspex's lunch. how? logging. got parity protection, too.. > I think it should probably be handled as a separate entity from the rest of > this (it's not something everyone wants by a long shot). agreed. the best reason for nvram is a persistent console log. curt