From owner-freebsd-stable Thu Oct 18 10:51: 7 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from lurza.secnetix.de (lurza.secnetix.de [212.66.1.130]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0FABD37B407 for ; Thu, 18 Oct 2001 10:51:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from olli@localhost) by lurza.secnetix.de (8.11.6/8.11.6) id f9IHp0T91734; Thu, 18 Oct 2001 19:51:00 +0200 (CEST) (envelope-from oliver.fromme@secnetix.de) Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2001 19:51:00 +0200 (CEST) Message-Id: <200110181751.f9IHp0T91734@lurza.secnetix.de> From: Oliver Fromme To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: dirpref gives massive performance boost In-Reply-To: <01c101c157f9$87868da0$fe0c4042@inethouston.net> X-Newsgroups: list.freebsd-stable User-Agent: tin/1.5.4-20000523 ("1959") (UNIX) (FreeBSD/4.4-RELEASE (i386)) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Sender: owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG David W. Chapman Jr. wrote: > > Dirpref is a smarter layout of information in a partition. You > > need a version of the system which knows HOW to do that smarter > > layout, and then you just rebuild the partition. There is no > > switch to turn on and off. > > I'm not looking to turn if off or on, just to see whether a file system of > mine has that capability in it or if I need to newfs it. The capability is not in the filesystem, it's in the UFS/FFS driver inside your kernel. As soon as you start creating directories with the new code in your kernel, they'll laid out according to the dirprefs rules. Actually you don't even have to newfs your filesystems, although it is probably a good idea to do it, in order to get the better layout right from the start. Think of it like covering the floor with tiles. The tiles have different colors (say, blue and green). First you start to spread a few of the blue ones, using a certain pattern, distributing them more or less evenly. At the same time, you're filling the gaps with green tiles. When you're halfway through, you notice that you don't like the pattern that much. You would rather prefer to arrange the blue ones in groups so they're closer together. You have two options: (a) Remove all tiles and start from scratch. This is your newfs. (b) Keep the tiles that are already on the floor, and continue using the new pattern. As you probably have guessed, the blue tiles are directories, the green ones are file data. Regards Oliver -- Oliver Fromme, secnetix GmbH & Co KG, Oettingenstr. 2, 80538 München Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way. "All that we see or seem is just a dream within a dream" (E. A. Poe) To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message