From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jun 8 00:15:51 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 78A7E16AC35 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 21:47:18 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from pi.codefab.com (pi.codefab.com [199.103.21.227]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1DC2D43D46 for ; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 21:47:18 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 57AC25D3A; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 17:47:17 -0400 (EDT) X-Virus-Scanned: amavisd-new at codefab.com Received: from pi.codefab.com ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (pi.codefab.com [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 376EkTLpl9cr; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 17:47:16 -0400 (EDT) Received: from [199.103.21.238] (pan.codefab.com [199.103.21.238]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-SHA (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by pi.codefab.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4B09F5C98; Wed, 7 Jun 2006 17:47:16 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <44863ECD.8010104@dudcore.net> References: <44863ECD.8010104@dudcore.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v750) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Charles Swiger Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2006 17:47:15 -0400 To: dud@dudcore.net X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.750) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Heavy creation and deletion of symlinks X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 08 Jun 2006 00:15:53 -0000 On Jun 6, 2006, at 10:49 PM, Dag Rune Sneeggen wrote: > So my question is; how does such activity affect the general health > and operation of FreeBSD? It doesn't, really. The OS will happily deference the symlinks you create as needed. > Also, the health of the harddrive(s) which will most likely be SATA > disks. Decent-quality disk drives shouldn't have any problems operating under continuous load, but some low-end "desktop" drives aren't rated for continuous operation. You should probably look into setting up a RAID-1, -10, or -5 configuration. > It is my understanding that symlinks only affects the file > allocation table, and not the physical data blocks? This would mean > that the impact isn't so terrible, as the changes will be contained > to a relatively small part of the beginning of the disk, correct? No, that is not correct. The FFS doesn't have a single "file allocation table", it has inodes scattered throughout the various cylinder groups, which will span the entire disk. Inodes contain some metadata which corresponds to aspects of the MS-DOS FAT. Some Unix systems utilize "fast symlinks" if the symlink is small enough (less than 50 characters or so), which are kept in the inode; otherwise, for longer symlinks, those are stored as data in sectors just like a normal file would be. -- -Chuck