On Thu, 9 Mar 2006, Gregory Hicks wrote:
> [Hugh Sasse wrote]
> > So, I have reached the conclusion that the best thing I can do to
> > improve performance is to use the --enable-temp-drop-dir and point
> > it to a different partition from /var/spool/mail so that disk seeks
> > on both partitions may occur in parallel. Does this sound like a
>
> Point to different spindles on different I/O channels. You have
> c0t0d0s6. Use c1t0d0s6 for the temp-drop-dir. At a minimum, point to
> different spindles.
OK, I think we only have c0t0d0s* on that machine, so I'm a bit stuck.
I thought that might be the case.
>
> any POP3 daemon is going to have problem is the spool gets too large.
>
> Also enable server mode. enable caching of temp dir
Enabling server mode is not possible given some types of client (from
my reading of the docs). I don't know all the clients people use, so
I must err on the side of caution. Or is that paranoid in 2006?
Caching requires server mode....
>
> > useful thing to do? What if they are on different slices of the same
> > disk -- would that make things worse (further for the heads to seek)?
>
> This WILL make things worse for just the reason you've stated.
Thanks. I'm not au fait with disk internals, and thought that some
disks may have many heads, not just to read one cylinder at a time,
but possible several. Access time is a market (selective) pressure
on disks.
>
Thank you
Hugh
