Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!gatech!udel!mmdf
From: jnall%FSU.BITNET@cornellc.cit.cornell.edu (John Nall 904-644-5241)
Newsgroups: comp.os.minix
Subject: Re: Disk performance under Minix
Message-ID: <21846@louie.udel.EDU>
Date: 16 Aug 89 20:26:24 GMT
Sender: mmdf@udel.EDU
Lines: 15

In article <21693@louie.udel.edu> HELMER%SDNET.BITNET@vm1.nodak.edu
(Guy Helmer) writes:
> A file's inode would get modified quite often....and put_block()
> might be called . . .

ast points out in the Book (pages 272-3 of my edition) that some
performance improvement might be made by scattering the inodes
around the disk.  Since both the super-block and the inodes are
at the very start of the disk, the problem of writing every time
would seem to be magnified by having to seek so far.  (Just thinking
out loud...if we write critical blocks often, but only for safety,
so we don't need them if we don't crash, could they be written
somewhere else........)

John Nall