Date: Wed, 10 Jan 2024 13:28:16 -0800 From: Rick Macklem <rick.macklem@gmail.com> To: "Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM)" <lyndon@orthanc.ca> Cc: Olivier Certner <olce@freebsd.org>, freebsd-current@freebsd.org Subject: Re: noatime on ufs2 Message-ID: <CAM5tNy4HuHb=GpQXvE4h2NC8_azOwDS3H7wY3UK%2BcE07owPr3A@mail.gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <a5e38bfbabd37084@orthanc.ca> References: <ZZqmmM-6f606bLJx@int21h> <CAGMYy3vsSD7HHtGxYXJn%2Busr8GCOd-0Xe1crs-Nx=qw-bYJ6HA@mail.gmail.com> <2eabfb91-afc3-47f7-98b9-1a1791ae6e7d@app.fastmail.com> <6714298.qJWK8QVVMX@ravel> <a5e38bfbabd37084@orthanc.ca>
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On Wed, Jan 10, 2024 at 12:44=E2=80=AFPM Lyndon Nerenberg (VE7TFX/VE6BBM) <lyndon@orthanc.ca> wrote: > > Olivier Certner writes: > > > I've never found any compelling reason in most uses to enable "atime", = except > > perhaps local mail but as addressed in other answers it is a relic of = the pa > > st mostly irrelevant today. And its drawbacks are well known and can b= e seri > > ous. > > When UNIX ran on PDP-11s and disk pack sizes were measured in the > tens of megabytes, atime was very helpful in determining which files > were likely candidates for archiving to tape when the disk was > getting full. And in the Usenet days it was common to mount > /var/spool/news noatime, which eliminated a *lot* of meta-info > write traffic. > > These days, other than /var/mail, I can't think of a compelling use > for it. I've been running my Plan 9 systems with atime disabled > ever since fossil arrived (decades) without any impact. > > I don't see any issue with making noatime the default. For those > that must have it, /var/mail can be carved out as a distinct > filesystem and mounted appropriately. Just choosing the last message in the thread... I do not have a strong opinion w.r.t. atime, but I do believe that changing the default would be a POLA violation. Please look at this email thread, where the opinion w.r.t. atime seemed quite different: freebsd-hackers@ Oct. 5, 2023 Subject: copy_file_range() doesn't update the atime of an empty file I'd put a url here, but gmail always puts the subject line in here when I copy/paste the url? Basically I did not think that updating the infd's atime when copy_file_ran= ge() did not actually copy any data, but the collective disagreed, so I patched the NFSv4 client. (I do not know if markj@'s patch did get committed). They also collectively thought that Linux did a poor job w.r.t. atime. rick > > --lyndon >
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