So I applied the pull-up patches to my 1.5.3_ALPHA alpha (pc164),
with a raidframe mirror across 2 IBM DTLA-307045 (and no softdeps).
The results were quite impressive:

    pre-dirpref kernel:
    thoreau 1029> time tar xpfz ../pkgsrc-20011101.tar.gz ; time rm -rf pkgsrc
    8.463u 71.155s 25:16.20  5.2%   0+0k 40061+234278io 52pf+0w
    1.399u 40.036s 17:08.78  4.0%   0+0k 18400+139621io 15pf+0w
    thoreau 1030> time tar xpfz ../pkgsrc-20011101.tar.gz ; time rm -rf pkgsrc
    8.436u 72.486s 25:22.85  5.3%   0+0k 40270+235332io 52pf+0w
    1.426u 40.970s 17:06.58  4.1%   0+0k 18405+139278io 15pf+0w

    post-dirpref kernel:
    thoreau 198> time tar xpfz ../pkgsrc-20011101.tar.gz ; time rm -rf pkgsrc
    8.667u 64.611s 8:28.63 14.4%    0+0k 11249+192971io 52pf+0w
    1.504u 35.883s 6:13.15 10.0%    0+0k 13730+107473io 15pf+0w
    thoreau 199> time tar xpfz ../pkgsrc-20011101.tar.gz ; time rm -rf pkgsrc
    8.206u 63.046s 8:32.01 13.9%    0+0k 11282+193608io 52pf+0w
    1.502u 35.314s 6:10.10  9.9%    0+0k 13751+107450io 15pf+0w

So roughly a factor of 3!  Very good...


Another interesting test was a "cvs update" in pkgsrc - this
was updating from a tree a couple of days old and so caught the
move of all the pkg/ subdir files.  Note that both parts of this
test were done on a kernel with the dirpref patches, one on an
old copy of the pkgsrc directory and the other one a new copy
of pkgsrc created with "tar cf - -C ... | tar xfp -" and so has
been layed out is

    cvs update with old pkgsrc directory:
    23.331u 141.154s 1:01:31.30 4.4%    0+0k 156270+351351io 118pf+0w

    cvs update with new pkgsrc directory:
    22.374u 118.713s   32:42.88 7.1%    0+0k  65793+286241io 148pf+0w

So that's a factor of 2 speed up, which emphasises the importance of
recreating any large directory trees to take advantage of the dirpref
smarts.

Simon (a happy camper!).
--
Simon Burge                            <simonb@wasabisystems.com>
NetBSD CDs, Support and Service:    http://www.wasabisystems.com/