From owner-freebsd-questions Mon Nov 26 5:58:45 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mip.co.za (puck.mip.co.za [209.212.106.44]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0F7F937B41A for ; Mon, 26 Nov 2001 05:58:34 -0800 (PST) Received: from patrick (patrick.mip.co.za [10.3.13.181]) by mip.co.za (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id PAA92542; Mon, 26 Nov 2001 15:58:25 +0200 (SAST) (envelope-from patrick@mip.co.za) From: "Patrick O'Reilly" To: "Nils Holland" Cc: "FreeBSD Question List" Subject: RE: Softupdates Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 16:02:10 +0200 Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 (Normal) X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook IMO, Build 9.0.2416 (9.0.2911.0) In-Reply-To: <20011126144141.A6950-100000@jodie.ncptiddische.net> X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.50.4133.2400 Importance: Normal 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 > From: nils@jodie.ncptiddische.net [mailto:nils@jodie.ncptiddische.net]On > Behalf Of Nils Holland > Sent: 26 November 2001 15:51 > > On Mon, 26 Nov 2001, Patrick O'Reilly wrote: > > > I've started using softupdates on a new server. Wow!!! > > > > Question: Is it safe to use softupdates on ALL disks? I have a nagging > > recollection that someone once said it should NOT be used on /. > > Without doubt, softupdates makes it likely that you would lose more data > in case of a power failure or (which is very rare under FreeBSD) a system > crash. There is actually no technical reason why softupdates should not be > enabled on /. It is only a recommendation that someone may have given, and > it's your job to decide if you want to follow that recommendation or not. > > On my own systems, I have softupdates enabled for everything, including /. > There have not been any problems so far, while performance has obviously > increased compared to softupdates turned off. In order to protect myself > from the increased chance of data loss, I keep regular backups, which is a > good idea anyway. > > One more thing that happens in conjunction with softupdates is the > following: If you have softupdates turned on for /usr, have a look at df > -h before you empty /usr/obj (or any other big directory) the next time. > Right after the directory has been emptied, do df -h again. Then wait a > minute and do even one more df -h. You will notice that the updating of > the free space on your filesystems gets delayed with softupdates turned > on. This may mean that under heavy file creation activities, your > filesystem may already be full before it's actually visible that it's > full, i.e. before the accountig information have been updated. However, I > don't think that this should keep you from turning softupdated on for /. > > All in all I think you can safely turn softupdates on for /. > > Greetings > Nils > Nils, thanks for that explanation - that's pretty much the way I understood it - but it is good to have confirmation. Regards, Patrick. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message