Re: Performance

>Sandro Magi <naasking@hotmail.com> wrote:
> >I was testing out VSTa and comparing it to my Linux installation and ran
>a
> >brief subjective test. I tried untarring and gunzipping the vsta_src.tz
>file
> >and noticed a huge speed difference. VSTa performed at least 3-4 times
> >slower than Linux.
>
>There are a few reasons for this, some good, some not.
>
>Linux gets a lot of its superior subjective performance from the fact
>that it caches disk writes so aggressively. VSTa, on the other hand,
>always
>tries to keep the disk in sync. There are upsides and downsides to both
>approaches; Linux's method feels faster but there's more risk of data loss
>in the case of a power failure.

Ahhh... I hadn't thought of that. I see how that could result in apparent
slower performance.

>The other big reason is that the FAT filesystem is an extremely simple
>filesystem and is not as efficient as the ext2 filesystem that Linux uses.
>VSTa supports another filesystem called 'vstafs', which is a more modern
>design and gives better performance.

Well this is a moot point since I extracted the file on the same FAT
partition in both Linux and VSTa to eliminate that possibility.

>Another thing you might try is passing a larger number in the -B switch to
>the "wd" server... this makes it use a larger buffer, if you've got some
>memory to spare.

I'll check that out. Thanks.

> >Also, untarring and gunzipping the vsta_src.tz file never finishes. It
> >always prematurely exits with a 'broken pipe' error.
>
>Are you certain that it exits prematurely? i.e., have you verified that
>some files aren't being extracted. Strictly speaking, the broken pipe
>condition may not be an error.... for example, if you're piping the
>output from gunzip as input to tar, then tar only knows when to stop
>working when an EOF comes over the pipe.
>
>--Mirian

I see. I'm just saying it exits prematurely because it's giving me an error
message. I'm performing the extraction with the command:

'tar zxvpf vsta_src.tz'

so no explicit piping involved, just implicit.

Thanks for the info.

Sincerely,
Sandro
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Received on Mon Dec 25 12:01:51 2000