From owner-freebsd-fs@FreeBSD.ORG Tue May 1 22:20:45 2007 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BD83A16A400 for ; Tue, 1 May 2007 22:20:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gore_jarold@yahoo.com) Received: from web63010.mail.re1.yahoo.com (web63010.mail.re1.yahoo.com [69.147.96.221]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6F60313C46A for ; Tue, 1 May 2007 22:20:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from gore_jarold@yahoo.com) Received: (qmail 70165 invoked by uid 60001); 1 May 2007 22:06:44 -0000 DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; q=dns; c=nofws; s=s1024; d=yahoo.com; h=X-YMail-OSG:Received:Date:From:Subject:To:MIME-Version:Content-Type:Content-Transfer-Encoding:Message-ID; b=5Ku3sr2XnHOz5vhFzERd/mu8pVKX3lQj+SsLqsxsC+u5SLa1Do0tu7xQHEe2BDwZUEebSMGIlAtz4D6PxzKMtdtqJp18EaLns1hWFAjZuitkzGpBmqD0DVrB43ZqUHHJjd/5wfBy+acrvMZSlO6+iL5JWA+B5I37zBVkTbOpesg=; X-YMail-OSG: LZEbA9UVM1lo5wDESPDHD5.QEEfucyDUss8YHg.PJQ2UGFUO5OPyp5.f8__1Vy10elkA3NRCSOck4G9TUQf4yBJlr17IswLeO1QGspIrG1dVxhlC0Btl6xBygdq7HawK Received: from [75.72.230.91] by web63010.mail.re1.yahoo.com via HTTP; Tue, 01 May 2007 15:06:43 PDT Date: Tue, 1 May 2007 15:06:43 -0700 (PDT) From: Gore Jarold To: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Message-ID: <7303.68459.qm@web63010.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Subject: infrequently used filesystem gets VERY slow X-BeenThere: freebsd-fs@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Filesystems List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Tue, 01 May 2007 22:20:45 -0000 Two machines, almost identical (same 3ware 9650se sata raid card, same 500 GB hitachi drives, etc.) First machine is running 6.1-RELEASE ... never noticed anything odd. Second machine is running 6.2-RELEASE. These machines are very simple office fileservers. So there is a / partition, a /var, and then a big monster raid-5 array with all the rest of the space. So it is very rare that anyone actually runs any interactive commands in the shell or does any access to files on the / or the /var filesystems. The VAST majority of all usage is on the big array. On the first machine (6.1) there is no noticable lag when accessing / and /var ... but on the second machine (6.2) there is a very long wait - sometimes 20 seconds or more - for commands that deal with the / or /var ... for instance, if I: grep username /etc/passwd or: tail -200 /var/log/messages those commands can take 10-20 seconds to complete. But then, if you run subsequent commands they are quick. Once you do some work on / or /var, their speed picks back up. So it would appear that files in / and /var are just nowhere in the cache at all ... which isn't so odd, but what is odd is that the problem is not seen on the first system. So was there any major differences between 6.1 and 6.2 in the filesystem caching and strategies that would account for this difference ? Any comments at all on what I am seeing ? --------------------------------- Ahhh...imagining that irresistible "new car" smell? Check outnew cars at Yahoo! Autos.