From owner-freebsd-current Tue Jan 12 04:16:52 1999 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id EAA10825 for freebsd-current-outgoing; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 04:16:52 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from TomQNX.tomqnx.com (cpu2745.adsl.bellglobal.com [207.236.55.214]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id EAA10819 for ; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 04:16:50 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from tom@tomqnx.com) Received: by TomQNX.tomqnx.com (Smail3.2 #1) id m1002k4-000I0SC; Tue, 12 Jan 1999 07:16:16 -0500 (EST) Message-Id: From: tom@tomqnx.com (Tom Torrance at home) Subject: Re: SOFTUPDATES question In-Reply-To: from Kenneth Wayne Culver at "Jan 11, 1999 4:13:42 pm" To: culverk@wam.umd.edu (Kenneth Wayne Culver) Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1999 07:16:16 -0500 (EST) Cc: current@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL43 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-current@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG > > What are the pros and cons of defining an extra swapfile that > > resides on a partition where SOFTUPDATES are enabled? > > > > Please do a group reply, as I am not registered for 'questions' list. > > > > Regards, > > Tom > Well, SOFTUPDATES are just a way of speeding things up. . Especially if > you have a slower hard drive. I personally havn't ever done this with a > swapfile, but I'm sure that swap writes would be improved much. Basically > what softupdates allows is async writes to a filesystem without the risks. I'm not so sure - essentially softupdates updates in memory and drags its feet a lot before writing to the actual disk. A swap file on the other hand wants its data written immediately to free up the associated memory. I have a feeling that the softupdates usage would actually increase memory usage, thereby increasing the swap file utilization - a vicious circle. Anyone else have a better feel for this? Tom To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-current" in the body of the message