Slashdot Mirror
Huge Increase for Ext2/Ext3 Performance
pixelbeat writes "Grigory Orlov origonally implemented this
new allocator for FreeBSD, and it's been
merged in 2.5.46 and the first benchmarks are in:
http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=linux-kernel&m=103 650970512510&w=2
In summary:
13% increase on unpacking a kernel tarball
43% increase on uncached kernel tree traversal
48% increase on cached kernel tree traversal
170%increase on deleting kernel tree"
typically I don't deal with thousands of small files at once.
I wonder how much better it does it do on the 650 MB video files I push around.
I honestly want to know if it is a huge increase, or a small increase.
As in all things benchmarking related, the answer is: It depends. This will be significant for certain uses of your system, but unimportant for others. If you've got a very busy file server, a news server, or a build machine where you do alot of compilation, this will be very significant. For other tasks you might not even notice.
This is a kernel change, so there won't be any ISOs. Why not just try it now?
it depends largely on what you do. If you handle many small files a lot, this would be an imporvement. For bigger files it's not yet known. In theory it could speed up an httpd when clients access lots of different static html files. Also nntpd (news) would be afected. maildir / imap servers could benefit too.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
I'm assuming you have a fast net connection. If you don't, please disregard...
Download the debian boot-floppies. You can do a full net instalation, and you'll only install what you need instead of downloading the entire contents of some distro's ISOs.
If you're not afraid of trying a development kernel with a beta filesystem patch, then the debian installation process should be simple.
Seriously, though. It looks like this new filesystem patch isn't quite ready. They're still finding leaked blocks and other corruption. You should run a "stable" kernel on your primary box, or you should do frequent backups! My primary workstation is running 2.4.17 (Hasn't had any downtime since 2.4.17 was released, so I haven't upgraded.), and I reserve the 2.5 series kernels for the rack of test machines behind me. If they break it's OK, but if I loose my emacs session I get seriously pissed off.
-- No need for flameproof armor. My home box runs windows most of the time. I hack Linux all day at work, so I want to use my home box for gaming. No better OS for that right now than windows. --
I don't know much about the patch but if I can get similar results then this is huge. Think about the things that you do on your computer that cause you to wait. I bet most of them are associated with disk IO eg booting, loading Word, Mozilla, etc. Now imagine these things taking significantly less time - without a hardware upgrade. Sounds good to me. I'm just waiting to the YMMV disclaimer...