Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 09:19:46 -0500 From: Sam <sam@wa4phy.net> To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Cc: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Normal behavior? Message-ID: <3C5D4702.661789BA@vortex.wa4phy.net>
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I'd appreciate some clarification about the behavior of the softupdates as it relates to disk writes. Situation: Have noticed that during an ftp session with relatively high (150 Kbs) data stream, I notice after what appears to be a short burst, i.e., 130 packets (viewed with systat -vm) there is a considerable delay before the next batch. Graphicaly viewing thruput with xsysinfo, I watch the disk write for each "batch", but while the write is happening, there appears to be a significant delay before the next packet stream is graphicaly displayed. Is this a function of softupdates, combined with the fact that the ATA drive has to be serviced by the processor, and the switcher can't service two things at once, or what. How often does the data that needs to be written actually get written to the disk, or do I misunderstand how softupdates works? Essentially, what it appears to me that is happening, is the packet stream is "suspended" while the disk is being written to. Is that a correct assumption? Since softupdates is on by default now, what damage would I do if I turned it off? Is that to my best interest? Thanks.. Sam -- Just because you're moving fast | BURMA SHAVE doesn't mean that you're really | going anwhere at all! | To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-stable" in the body of the message
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