From owner-freebsd-current Fri Sep 15 9: 6:26 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-current@freebsd.org Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (adsl-63-202-177-115.dsl.snfc21.pacbell.net [63.202.177.115]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 225B537B423; Fri, 15 Sep 2000 09:06:23 -0700 (PDT) Received: from mass.osd.bsdi.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by mass.osd.bsdi.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id WAA00506; Thu, 14 Sep 2000 22:24:25 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from msmith@mass.osd.bsdi.com) Message-Id: <200009150524.WAA00506@mass.osd.bsdi.com> X-Mailer: exmh version 2.1.1 10/15/1999 To: Wes Peters Cc: Greg Lehey , Thomas David Rivers , julian@elischer.org, nik@FreeBSD.ORG, current@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: No block devices (was: VMWare on -current, how fast should I expect it to be?) In-reply-to: Your message of "Thu, 14 Sep 2000 23:18:11 MDT." <39C1B113.95D2B88B@softweyr.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Date: Thu, 14 Sep 2000 22:24:25 -0700 From: Mike Smith Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > Greg Lehey wrote: > > > > FWIW, I was never happy with the removal of block devices either. I > > was shouted down with "can you point to any one use they are?", to > > which I replied "just because I don't know of one doesn't mean there > > isn't one, or that there will never be one in the future". This is an > > example where they could presumably be useful. > > Doesn't Oracle run MUCH better when given raw block disk devices to store > data on? Oracle wants to cache it's own data, it doesn't want the buffer cache behind it. > Could this have lead to some of the poor performance Mike Smith > was seeing when testing this summer? No, we were layering over the filesystem, however filesystem load was insignificant. The Oracle performance issues are well known, and this isn't one of them. -- ... every activity meets with opposition, everyone who acts has his rivals and unfortunately opponents also. But not because people want to be opponents, rather because the tasks and relationships force people to take different points of view. [Dr. Fritz Todt] To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message