On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 02:13:54 -0500 (EST)  "John S. Dyson" wrote:

> Simon Burge said:
> > On Fri, 12 Jun 1998 00:27:45 -0500 (EST)  "John S. Dyson" wrote:
> > 
> > >          [ ... stuff deleted ... ]
> > > Massive
> > > builds are silent when using FreeBSD, after the initial cache preload
> > > with make depend.
> > >          [ ... stuff deleted ... ]
> > 
> > I assume silent except for syncs, or do you have syncing disabled?
> > 
> Disabling syncs is not a resonable  option on FreeBSD (except for
> laptops.) That is frighteningly dangerous policy.  There is some disk
> activity, but it isn't significant, compared to the chatter-chatter-chatter.
> 
> Aren't seeks a big part of the delay in retrieving file info?  If most
> things are cached in memory, then file/metadata writes are the biggest
> part of the picture.  There are also improvements that can be made
> in the way writes are done also (special metadata handling.)

I thought you implied that there was _no_ disk activity.  Thank you,
this makes your statement a lot clearer to me!

Simon.