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Date:      Wed, 27 Oct 1999 11:53:35 -0700
From:      Mike Smith <mike@smith.net.au>
To:        Ilia Chipitsine <ilia@cgilh.chel.su>
Cc:        David Scheidt <dscheidt@enteract.com>, Chuck Robey <chuckr@picnic.mat.net>, Ben Rosengart <ben@skunk.org>, Chuck Youse <cyouse@paradox.nexuslabs.com>, questions@FreeBSD.ORG, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: why FFS is THAT slower than EXT2 ? 
Message-ID:  <199910271853.LAA00409@dingo.cdrom.com>
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Wed, 27 Oct 1999 23:59:07 %2B0600." <Pine.BSF.4.10.9910272357290.760-100000@localhost.cgu.chel.su> 

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> in order to save space I gzip'ped output of my tests. 
> ungzipping ports tarball on FreeBSD took 28 min
> on Linux --- about 2.5 times faster.

This is something we already know, and it's not the sort of test that 
you should ever headline as "why is FFS so much slower"?

Creation of massive directory tree hierarchies under FFS is more
expensive because of the way that FFS tries to keep directories spread
out, in order to later have a better chance of putting files close to
their parent directories.  When you create a massive and mostly empty
tree like the ports tree, you pay for this optimisation.   The
justification for this behaviour is that you only create the tree once,
but you may use it for years afterwards.

Thus, claiming that "FFS is slower" is both short-sighted and 
incorrect.  If you're going to bother to publicise the results of your 
tests, you could try actually conducting some meaningful tests first.


-- 
\\ Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. \\  Mike Smith
\\ Tell him he should learn how to fish himself,  \\  msmith@freebsd.org
\\ and he'll hate you for a lifetime.             \\  msmith@cdrom.com




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