Disc cache worth it?
I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. Looking in !Cache, which is in !Boot.!Resources, I find that in the Caches.Default.NetSurf directory there are currently 1933 files, totalling 22449384 bytes. Is this to be expected, as I don't use NetSurf a huge amount? I've already excluded this directory from my daily backup, which has been taking a lot longer since I started using !Cache. Best wishes, Peter. -- Peter Young (zfc W) and family Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52, England http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk pnyo...@ormail.co.uk
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:58:52 +0100, Peter Young wrote: If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I'm sure Vince will correct me here, but I believe NetSurf saves the cache files to disk when they are downloaded (as opposed to when they are evicted from the memory cache), so you will get a delay as NetSurf gets busy saving the files. If you've gone back to the same site though most of the files should be loading from disk and I wouldn't expect any additional delay. You will need to post a log file so we can get a handle on exactly what is causing the pauses. Looking in !Cache, which is in !Boot.!Resources, I find that in the Caches.Default.NetSurf directory there are currently 1933 files, totalling 22449384 bytes. Is this to be expected, as I don't use NetSurf a huge amount? Yes. That's only 22MB. The default limit is 1GB. I've already excluded this directory from my daily backup, which has been taking a lot longer since I started using !Cache. There's no point in backing up these files. Chris
Re: Disc cache worth it?
Peter Young, on 23 Jun, wrote: I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I have found much the same, a really good example of this is the Daily Mail's heavy weight site. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Writes to the Raspberry Pi's SD Card are so slow that !Cache is not going to be good news on it. It is better with !Cache on a Fat32 harddisc connected to the Pi and on the Iyonix but is still an issue. Overall I was not persuaded that the cache results is any meaningful speed up and could even slow things up, not just on the Raspberry Pi but also on the Iyonix and VRPC on a Windows 7 laptop with an SSD. Looking in !Cache, which is in !Boot.!Resources, I find that in the Caches.Default.NetSurf directory there are currently 1933 files, totalling 22449384 bytes. Is this to be expected, as I don't use NetSurf a huge amount? I've already excluded this directory from my daily backup, which has been taking a lot longer since I started using !Cache. A lot of stuff is cached and the default maximum cache size is 1GB. It's not worth backing up, it's transient data that expires in a default of 28 days. I have uninstalled !Cache. -- David Pitt
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On 23 Jun 2014 Chris Young chris.yo...@unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk wrote: On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 17:58:52 +0100, Peter Young wrote: If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I'm sure Vince will correct me here, but I believe NetSurf saves the cache files to disk when they are downloaded (as opposed to when they are evicted from the memory cache), so you will get a delay as NetSurf gets busy saving the files. If you've gone back to the same site though most of the files should be loading from disk and I wouldn't expect any additional delay. You will need to post a log file so we can get a handle on exactly what is causing the pauses. Thanks, Chris. I've a couple of busy days coming up, with one early start, but I'll try to save a log after a new day's start-up, and give some timings of the hourglass activity on the BBC news site. Where or to whom should I post the log? Looking in !Cache, which is in !Boot.!Resources, I find that in the Caches.Default.NetSurf directory there are currently 1933 files, totalling 22449384 bytes. Is this to be expected, as I don't use NetSurf a huge amount? Yes. That's only 22MB. The default limit is 1GB. I've already excluded this directory from my daily backup, which has been taking a lot longer since I started using !Cache. There's no point in backing up these files. Thanks again for these two points. Best wishes, Peter. -- Peter Young (zfc W) and family Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52, England http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk pnyo...@ormail.co.uk
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On 23 Jun 2014 David Pitt pit...@pittdj.co.uk wrote: Peter Young, on 23 Jun, wrote: I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I have found much the same, a really good example of this is the Daily Mail's heavy weight site. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Writes to the Raspberry Pi's SD Card are so slow that !Cache is not going to be good news on it. It is better with !Cache on a Fat32 harddisc connected to the Pi and on the Iyonix but is still an issue. Overall I was not persuaded that the cache results is any meaningful speed up and could even slow things up, not just on the Raspberry Pi but also on the Iyonix and VRPC on a Windows 7 laptop with an SSD. Thanks, David, and I'm glad it's not just me. I'll await what Chris makes of a logfile, when I get a round tuit, and will maybe then uninstall !Cache. Best wishes, Peter. -- Peter Young (zfc W) and family Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52, England http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk pnyo...@ormail.co.uk
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:13:17 +0100, Peter Young wrote: Thanks, Chris. I've a couple of busy days coming up, with one early start, but I'll try to save a log after a new day's start-up, and give some timings of the hourglass activity on the BBC news site. Where or to whom should I post the log? The best thing to do is raise a bug report and attach it to that. Chris
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On 23 Jun 2014 Chris Young chris.yo...@unsatisfactorysoftware.co.uk wrote: On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 21:13:17 +0100, Peter Young wrote: Thanks, Chris. I've a couple of busy days coming up, with one early start, but I'll try to save a log after a new day's start-up, and give some timings of the hourglass activity on the BBC news site. Where or to whom should I post the log? The best thing to do is raise a bug report and attach it to that. OK, but is it really a bug? I'll do as you suggest, anyway. Best wishes, Peter. -- Peter Young (zfc W) and family Prestbury, Cheltenham, Glos. GL52, England http://pnyoung.orpheusweb.co.uk pnyo...@ormail.co.uk
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 07:04:53PM +0100, David Pitt wrote: Peter Young, on 23 Jun, wrote: I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I have found much the same, a really good example of this is the Daily Mail's heavy weight site. Ultimately, my advice is to not visit this service. This stands regardless of any cache issues that may exist :) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Writes to the Raspberry Pi's SD Card are so slow that !Cache is not going to be good news on it. It is better with !Cache on a Fat32 harddisc connected to the Pi and on the Iyonix but is still an issue. Indeed, SD has poor write performance almost anywhere, like most flash-based devices. Overall I was not persuaded that the cache results is any meaningful speed up and could even slow things up, not just on the Raspberry Pi but also on the Iyonix and VRPC on a Windows 7 laptop with an SSD. Certainly on UNIX and BeOS, it seems to provide a significant performance boost, but this is probably because of their far superior IO layers. On RISC OS, the disc cache *may* only be a win for people on slow connections. B.
Re: Disc cache worth it?
Just for a positive, I have a panda board my Internet connection is 120mbit. I do notice a difference. From my understanding and benchmarks the sd card can write at 20MB/sec and the fastest tcp I can get is 6MB/sec read and that's off a local webserver for testing purposes. So I can't see how it would be slower to be honest. I'm slightly confused. Cheers, Malcolm On 23 Jun 2014, Rob Kendrick r...@netsurf-browser.org wrote: On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 07:04:53PM +0100, David Pitt wrote: Peter Young, on 23 Jun, wrote: I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I have found much the same, a really good example of this is the Daily Mail's heavy weight site. Ultimately, my advice is to not visit this service. This stands regardless of any cache issues that may exist :) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Writes to the Raspberry Pi's SD Card are so slow that !Cache is not going to be good news on it. It is better with !Cache on a Fat32 harddisc connected to the Pi and on the Iyonix but is still an issue. Indeed, SD has poor write performance almost anywhere, like most flash-based devices. Overall I was not persuaded that the cache results is any meaningful speed up and could even slow things up, not just on the Raspberry Pi but also on the Iyonix and VRPC on a Windows 7 laptop with an SSD. Certainly on UNIX and BeOS, it seems to provide a significant performance boost, but this is probably because of their far superior IO layers. On RISC OS, the disc cache *may* only be a win for people on slow connections. B. -- Sent with K-@ Mail - the evolution of emailing.
Re: Disc cache worth it?
Perhaps having scrap and cache is causing issues on the same card? I use memphis for scrap? On 23 Jun 2014, Rob Kendrick r...@netsurf-browser.org wrote: On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 07:04:53PM +0100, David Pitt wrote: Peter Young, on 23 Jun, wrote: I've been using the disc cache on RISC OS 2.19, ARMini, and I seem to have found some downsides to it, and I wonder if (a) I'm doing it correctly and (b) if it's worth the occasional faster opening of some sites. If I load, for instance, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/ as the first site of a session, it loads maybe a little faster, but then I get intermittent hourglass activity for sometimes up to thirty seconds, during which I can't do anything else. There are several other sites, for instance Wikipedia home page, which do the same. And the next day the same happens. I have found much the same, a really good example of this is the Daily Mail's heavy weight site. Ultimately, my advice is to not visit this service. This stands regardless of any cache issues that may exist :) http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/index.html Writes to the Raspberry Pi's SD Card are so slow that !Cache is not going to be good news on it. It is better with !Cache on a Fat32 harddisc connected to the Pi and on the Iyonix but is still an issue. Indeed, SD has poor write performance almost anywhere, like most flash-based devices. Overall I was not persuaded that the cache results is any meaningful speed up and could even slow things up, not just on the Raspberry Pi but also on the Iyonix and VRPC on a Windows 7 laptop with an SSD. Certainly on UNIX and BeOS, it seems to provide a significant performance boost, but this is probably because of their far superior IO layers. On RISC OS, the disc cache *may* only be a win for people on slow connections. B. -- Sent with K-@ Mail - the evolution of emailing.
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On Mon, 23 Jun 2014 22:43:52 +0100, Peter Young wrote: Thanks, Chris. I've a couple of busy days coming up, with one early start, but I'll try to save a log after a new day's start-up, and give some timings of the hourglass activity on the BBC news site. Where or to whom should I post the log? The best thing to do is raise a bug report and attach it to that. OK, but is it really a bug? I'll do as you suggest, anyway. If it's not working as it should, it's a bug. :) There may be something that can be done to improve matters, such as delaying disk cache writes until the browser isn't busy, or only writing out when the item is removed from the memory cache. It may be that it is a true bug and is writing when it shouldn't be, or there is some performance problem which is nothing to do with disk I/O. Chris
Re: Disc cache worth it?
On 23 Jun 2014, Rob Kendrick r...@netsurf-browser.org wrote: [snip] On RISC OS, the disc cache *may* only be a win for people on slow connections. Using RISC OS on a RiscPC, with a slow internet connection, and Cache enabled, I found that launching half a dozen stories from Google News caused the machine to be virtually unusable for half an hour, or more. Judging by the hard-drive activity light, Cache writes to disc on the fly. However, if it were to postpone writing until NetSurf was quit, the delay would occur then. Either way, inconvenient. Tony
