Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!sunybcs!boulder!hao!noao!arizona!amethyst!spock!chris
From: chris@spock (Chris Ott)
Newsgroups: comp.os.misc
Subject: OS features
Message-ID: <561@amethyst.ma.arizona.edu>
Date: 15 Dec 87 04:50:33 GMT
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Reply-To: chris@spock.ame.arizona.edu (Chris Ott)
          chris%spock@amethyst.UUCP
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Organization: Computer-Aided Engineering Lab (CAEL),
              University of Arizona
Lines: 24


Mark Woodruff writes:
> o  Contiguous file allocation on large devices.  The additional overhead
>    of discontiguous file allocation is unwarranted on modern hardware.

     One of the features of AOS/VS (Data General) that I like is its
variable element size. Files are made up of elements of a given number
of blocks. For example, if a file's element size is 10 blocks, the file
will grow in chunks of 10 blocks at a time. This is great when you're
setting up a file that you know is going to be large, and you want to
quickly access the data: just set the element size to 30000 or something.
Likewise, you don't want to take up 30000 blocks for a file that's only
going to be a few lines long, so you can set the element size to 1 block,
and only 1 block will be allocated at a time. I haven't seen this feature
on any other operating system. Has anyone else?

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 Chris Ott
 Computer-Aided Engr. Lab                  Beware of low-flying butterflies.
 University of Arizona

 Internet: chris@spock.ame.arizona.edu
 UUCP: {allegra,cmcl2,hao!noao}!arizona!amethyst!spock!chris
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