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From: kargl@hotrat.apl.washington.edu
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: MFS - Why?
Date: 29 May 1996 06:02:17 GMT
Organization: Applied Physics Laboratory
Lines: 22
Message-ID: <4ogp99$kfu@nntp5.u.washington.edu>
References: <AEn4jRr0u3@qsar.chem.msu.su>
NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-C0.apl.washington.edu
"Eugene Radchenko" <eugene@qsar.chem.msu.su> wrote in article <AEn4jRr0u3@qsar.chem.msu.su> :
>
>Hi!
>I could not figure this out myself. What is the point of using MFS
>(especially for the temporary files) if the system has disk caching
>(especially merged VM/disk cache like FreeBSD)?
>In fact, SGI FAQ spanks the idea of RAM disk under Unix as a PC-ism and
>claims that kernel does a much better job of figuring what to keep where if
>you just copy something to normal filesystem.
>Could you knowledgeable folks shed some light on this?
>
> Thanks Genie
>--
>
Because many programs will create temporary files. Try compiling a C
program without the -pipe option and with the -v option. You'll see a
few temporary files created. Writing these temporary files to a MFS
is much faster than writing to disk. Of course, if you have the memory
available for a MFS, you'll want to use the -pipe option with gcc.
Steve