From owner-cvs-src@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 11 02:33:53 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: cvs-src@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 83A5616A4CE; Thu, 11 Mar 2004 02:33:53 -0800 (PST) Received: from salmon.maths.tcd.ie (salmon.maths.tcd.ie [134.226.81.11]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 31FC243D2F; Thu, 11 Mar 2004 02:33:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie) Received: from walton.maths.tcd.ie by salmon.maths.tcd.ie with SMTP id ; 11 Mar 2004 10:33:51 +0000 (GMT) Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 10:33:50 +0000 From: David Malone To: Colin Percival Message-ID: <20040311103350.GA22684@walton.maths.tcd.ie> References: <20040311044722.GA93643@regency.nsu.ru> <48203.1078985587@critter.freebsd.dk> <6.0.1.1.1.20040311062306.03f9ade0@imap.sfu.ca> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <6.0.1.1.1.20040311062306.03f9ade0@imap.sfu.ca> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.3i Sender: dwmalone@maths.tcd.ie cc: cvs-src@FreeBSD.org cc: Poul-Henning Kamp cc: src-committers@FreeBSD.org cc: cvs-all@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: cvs commit: src/sys/sys mdioctl.h src/sys/dev/md md.c src/sbin/mdconfig mdconfig.8 mdconfig.c X-BeenThere: cvs-src@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: CVS commit messages for the src tree List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2004 10:33:53 -0000 On Thu, Mar 11, 2004 at 06:30:28AM +0000, Colin Percival wrote: > Is it really necessary for vnode-backed memory disks to be > accessed through the filesystem? Why can't md(4) hijack the > disk blocks which constitute the file There may not even be blocks that constitute the file, if the file is sparse. vnode backed sparse files can be useful for creating and testing large filesystems, if you don't happen to have TB of disk space to hand... David.