> I'd blame my hardware if i hadn't had similar experiences several years > ago (on solaris) with an application that was written to use flat files > as a "database". > > the filesystem just didn't like lots and lots of small files and the > system panicked every few weeks, and fsck took FOREVER. I'm guessing > it doesn't like lots of hard links, either, and my fscks have taken > over two days (admittedly, i am using slow disks). > > I'm converting my system to run on linux as i write this. > > Anyway, just a word of warning. I wouldn't be surprised if nobody > else had ever run this on Solaris, and I'd like nobody else to > run into the problems I have.
I'd think it's a problem that you could possibly run into on other OS and filesystem due to either contstraints of the inode table or kernel limits, and certain performance features, such as "sparse" files and inlining small files in the inodes themselves. On SGI IRIX, I vaguely remember tuning parameters in XFS or older EFS due to similar problems where you have lots of small files and directories, but that was a few years ago. IRIX also had some xfs debug tools that were somewhat useful. I don't know if there is anything comparable for UFS. Newer fs, including current version of XFS, have theorhetical limits that are much higher, but I suspect may have unanticipated problems at lower limits, depending how well they really scale and the hardware that they are implemented on. Although I mentioned XFS, this is not an endorsement or anything, for "/" or "/boot" I am using ext3 (a conservative choice I think and also works well with Xen) then primarily ReiserFS on LVM and RAID1 where I can. xfsdump and related tools was the "killer app" for me when I was doing AMANDA tape backups, but restoring from BackupPC is so much easier. What's somewhat unique to BackupPC is the large number of hard links, especially as you add more computers into the system. Jonathan ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take Surveys. Earn Cash. Influence the Future of IT Join SourceForge.net's Techsay panel and you'll get the chance to share your opinions on IT & business topics through brief surveys-and earn cash http://www.techsay.com/default.php?page=join.php&p=sourceforge&CID=DEVDEV _______________________________________________ BackupPC-users mailing list BackupPC-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/backuppc-users http://backuppc.sourceforge.net/
