GNU bug report logs - #9500
cp: use posix_fallocate where supported

Previous Next

Full log

View this message in rfc822 format

From: Paul Eggert <eggert <at> cs.ucla.edu>
To: Pádraig Brady <P <at> draigBrady.com>
Cc: 9500 <at> debbugs.gnu.org, Kelly Anderson <kelly <at> silka.with-linux.com>, Jim Meyering <jim <at> meyering.net>, Goswin von Brederlow <goswin-v-b <at> web.de>
Subject: bug#9500: [PATCH]: use posix_fallocate where supported
Date: Tue, 29 Nov 2011 08:06:57 -0800

My read of the situation is that the filesystem guys have
spent a lot of time optimizing ordinary write but they
haven't gotten around to optimizing fallocate because it's
so rarely used -- which means that if one uses fallocate
one gets lousy performance.

It's a chicken and egg problem.

If coreutils started using fallocate now, one can be pretty
sure they'd tune their filesystems over the next few years,
to make fallocate compatible with delayed-write optimizations.
On the other hand if nobody uses fallocate, there will be little
incentive on their part to make it go fast.

It's a question of whether we want to inflict temporary pain
on users for a long-term benefit (early warning of file system
full, which is something I'd dearly love to have).

Previous Next

GNU bug tracking system
Copyright (C) 1999 Darren O. Benham, 1997,2003 nCipher Corporation Ltd, 1994-97 Ian Jackson.