From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Mar 6 21:34: 1 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from post-20.mail.nl.demon.net (post-20.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A163437B404 for ; Wed, 6 Mar 2002 21:33:55 -0800 (PST) Received: from [212.238.194.207] (helo=mailhost.raggedclown.net) by post-20.mail.nl.demon.net with esmtp (Exim 3.35 #2) id 16iqXK-000Lko-00 for questions@FreeBSD.ORG; Thu, 07 Mar 2002 05:33:54 +0000 Received: from angel.raggedclown.net (angel.raggedclown.intra [192.168.1.7]) by mailhost.raggedclown.net (Ragged Clown Mail Gateway [buffy]) with ESMTP id D3F5513040 for ; Thu, 7 Mar 2002 06:33:53 +0100 (CET) Received: by angel.raggedclown.net (Ragged Clown Host [angel], from userid 1005) id A9F3122597; Thu, 7 Mar 2002 06:33:50 +0100 (CET) Date: Thu, 7 Mar 2002 06:33:50 +0100 From: Cliff Sarginson To: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Softupdates on root in 4.5-RELEASE Message-ID: <20020307053350.GA2142@raggedclown.net> References: <47615415@toto.iv> <20020306144816.C2BBFBA03@i8k.babbleon.org> <20020306145517.GE4280@raggedclown.net> <20020307030446.19E24BA03@i8k.babbleon.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20020307030446.19E24BA03@i8k.babbleon.org> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.27i Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 10:04:45PM -0500, Brian T. Schellenberger wrote: > On Wednesday 06 March 2002 09:55 am, Cliff Sarginson wrote: > | On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 09:48:16AM -0500, Brian T. Schellenberger wrote: > | > On Wednesday 06 March 2002 09:35 am, Cliff Sarginson wrote: > | > | On Wed, Mar 06, 2002 at 03:19:26AM -0600, Mike Meyer wrote: > | > | > I personally make the root partitoin larger, enable soft updates, and > | > | > use SCSI disks with proper tagged queuing support so the write cache > | > | > isn't a problem. > | > | > | > | Can you clarify this a bit. > | > | With a SCSI disk, tagged queuing etc, soft-updates are not helpful ? > | > | yes or no ? > | > > | > No. That is, they ARE helpful. > | > > | > But with tagged queuing on a SCSI disk, write caching isn't dangerous, so > | > there's no reason not to use it. > | > > | > With an IDE disk, write caching IS dangerous. > | > > | > Another advantage of SCSI. > | > | Ok, so currently this BSD system runs off SCSI with soft-updates on > | everything, except root. > | > | Would you recommend that optimal performance would be achieved, without > | danger, by enabling write-caching as well ? > > Yes, if you have tagged queuing. Check your messages (dmeg). > Mounting root from ufs:/dev/da0s2a da0 at sym0 bus 0 target 6 lun 0 da0: Fixed Direct Access SCSI-3 device da0: 80.000MB/s transfers (40.000MHz, offset 31, 16bit), Tagged Queueing Enabled > | And what would you recommend therefore with root, which has neither > | enabled at the moment ? > > Provided it's reasonably large (say, over 100M). > Yes it is larger than that. > But you can't enable/disable write-caching on a per-partition basis anyway. Yes, of course. > Ok, that sounds good. Mmm. I am curious and will try this. One thing for anybody considering wanting to go broke in a hurry, I personally can verify that SCSI makes a *huge* difference on a system. Buildworld, compared to doing it on my IDE drives, just blinks by in comparison. If this may make it even faster I will be impressed :) But the price differential is phenomenal ...at least here in Holland :(. e.g 40GB 7200 ATA 100 = 138 Euros (c. $160) 36.7GB 7200 SCSI U160 = 389 Euros (c. $480) Also I get the feeling SCSI drives seem to have their sizes specified where 1K = 1000, IDE drives where 1K = 1024. -- Regards Cliff Sarginson -- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message