On Tue, Mar 07, 2006 at 12:20:04PM -0500, Paul Fox wrote: > to clarify -- in the "normal" case, where the backup data is > usually not read, but only written, the current filesystems are > okay, right? it's only when you want to preserve or copy your > pool that there's an issue? (or am i neglecting something? i > might well be.)
Even just the normal process of looking at the pool, either to see if a file is present, or as part of the cleanup scan is much slower. > if this is mostly true, then creating a better data copier might > be productive. i thought there was work some time ago to allow > listing the files to be copied in inode order, using an external > tool that pre-processed the tree. what happened with that? It depends on the filesystem, but it still only helps slightly. It is better to read randomized inodes in order, but it would be much faster (orders of magnitude) if those inodes were next to each other in the first place. > but having the backup pools exist in the native filesystem in a > (relatively) transparent way is a huge part of backuppc's > attraction. The pools wouldn't change. The backup trees themselves are not really transparent, anyway. The names are mangled, and the attributes are stored in an attribute file. I would suspect that people browse backups using the web interface more than they try to glean anything from the 'pc' directories. I'm not sure I agree that storing backup data in a very inefficient data structure is a big attraction. If someone really wanted to, they could write a fuse plugin that would present the backup directory as a real tree, complete with attributes, and visible at any particular time. This would be a useful browsing method. Dave ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.Net email is sponsored by xPML, a groundbreaking scripting language that extends applications into web and mobile media. Attend the live webcast and join the prime developer group breaking into this new coding territory! http://sel.as-us.falkag.net/sel?cmd=lnk&kid=110944&bid=241720&dat=121642 _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
