[Info-vax] Anyone interested in another public access system

[Bill Gunshannon]

In article <gs0quj$8en$1 at pechter.motzarella.org>,
	pechter at bandit.pechter.dyndns.org.pechter.dyndns.org (Bill Pechter) writes:
> In article <rdSdnTee6OfhV37UnZ2dnUVZ_jGdnZ2d at giganews.com>,
> Dennis Boone <drb at ihatespam.msu.edu> wrote:
>> > Unix provides no means to create a contiguous file; just splatter it
>> > all over the disk!.  Even <obligatory retching noises> Windows has
>> > a utility to make your files and free space contiguous.  Unix just
>> > doesn't care.
>>
>>All over the disk?  Nonsense.  Unices have always tried to keep files
>>(and their related inodes) contiguous or close together on the disk.
>>Defrag utilities exist for some filesystems, and though coverage could
>>be better, fixing it later with a defrag tool is a bass-ackwards fix.
>>In any event, the idea that the system has to *force* the file to be
>>contiguous can't be useful very often -- surely a best effort is better
>>than an abort.
>>
> 
> Really... Not true in AT&T based Unixes using the SystemV 1k filesystem.
> Fragmentation was an issue.  Before that it was even worse.
> I remember doing ncheck, icheck etc before there was FSCK.

Yeah, and I remember doing SQUEEZE on my DEC disks.  Do we still have to
do that on VMS, I wonder?

> 
> Mount verification in progress and the bitmap check on VMS was a whole
> lot better.  BSD very different than the AT&T based Unix filesystems.
> 
> VMS and the BSD's were a bit better in trying to keep the allocations 
> together.

Can't speak for VMS, but as regards BSD, that is a bit of an understatement.
>From some of my systems: 

1746 files, 44420 used, 10109779 free (2635 frags, 1263393 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)
19 files, 25064 used, 20286338 free (26 frags, 2535789 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)
6878 files, 289010 used, 25099511 free (5143 frags, 3136796 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)
789103 files, 79801403 used, 156703416 free (197312 frags, 19563263 blocks, 0.1% fragmentation)

User fileserver.  Last one is the users directory.  1400 users filesystem
shared thru NFS on Unix systems and Samba on Windows system.  All faculty
and student files are here.


132495 files, 2163445 used, 54601550 free (41366 frags, 6820023 blocks, 0.1% fragmentation)

Server set up for literacy students to put up web pages.  4100 students.


562 files, 2945723 used, 34908981 free (293 frags, 4363586 blocks, 0.0% fragmentation)

Our email spool.  1400 users.  ~40000 connections evey 24 hours.

Note the percentage of fragmentation.  And, no, there are no de-frag
programs for BSD Unix.  The question does come up from a windows weenie
periodically in the BSD Newsgroups.

> 
> The BSD Fast Filesystem and it's decendants were a huge improvement over
> the AT&T filesystems which looked and acted like they were written for
> RK05's. (and they were...)

But then, look at when AT&T actually stopped developing SYSV.

bill

-- 
Bill Gunshannon          |  de-moc-ra-cy (di mok' ra see) n.  Three wolves
billg999 at cs.scranton.edu |  and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
University of Scranton   |
Scranton, Pennsylvania   |         #include <std.disclaimer.h>