Date: Mon, 26 Nov 2001 14:50:53 +0100 (CET) From: Nils Holland <nils@tisys.org> To: "Patrick O'Reilly" <patrick@mip.co.za> Cc: FreeBSD Question List <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: Softupdates Message-ID: <20011126144141.A6950-100000@jodie.ncptiddische.net> In-Reply-To: <NDBBIMKICMDGDMNOOCAICENGDPAA.patrick@mip.co.za>
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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 Holland Ti Systems - FreeBSD in Tiddische, Germany http://www.tisys.org * nils@tisys.org To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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