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To: Thomas Vogt <turbo23@gmx.net>
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From: Lowell Gilbert <freebsd-questions-local@be-well.ilk.org>
Date: 14 Mar 2004 08:44:38 -0500
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Subject: Re: performance with less than 8% minfree
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Thomas Vogt <turbo23@gmx.net> writes:

> FreeBSD 4.9 man tunefs(8) explains in section "-m minfree" that by
> default, 8% disk space is reserved for root. The man page also says
> clearly that I'll lose performance if I reduce minfree. My mailserver
> has one drive for the base system and a raid enviroment with 500GB
> space for the users mailboxes. 8% of 500gb space is a lot of space
> which I can't use anymore for my users mailboxes.
> So if I set this minfree to < 8% is there any other option I have to
> set that I don't lose too much performance. We're talking about a lot
> of write procedures for small files.

Not really.  Note, however, that it's the actual free space that can
cut into performance, rather than the minimum free setting.  You will
only take the hit when the disk is getting close to full.