This is an article that would have benefited greatly from a slashdot discussion.All the comments that are in this Digg thread are of the"No it doesn't" "Yes it does n00b" type.I feel a little bit dumber and I will get modded down even if this comment is technically correct.
Looking forward, fragmentation is going to become even less of an issue. Not saying that the file systems that currently fragment files won't, but that the performance penalties will dissappear.So what is the problem with fragmentation? Put simply, it is hard drive technology. Data are stored on the magnetised surface of the platters, which are spinning under a read/write head.With such a storage system, it is ideal that data is stored in close physical proximity. Even though disks spin between 5200 and 15000RPM, fragmentation can cause significant delays in receiving the data. Also, reading and writing data to the outer tracks is much faster (ie double speed) to the inner tracks, because, well just look at a circle.The designers of many popular file systems took these physical characteristics of hard drive storage technology into account when designing their file systems. There is no good reason to prefer data to be written to the first blocks of the disk, or to prefer that files are not fragmented other than on disk based technology this gives better performance.So what is likely to happen? Solid state memory is now offering capacities large and cheap enough to be considered for basic installations. We are not talking about massive DivX collection sized storage capacities, but we are currently getting several Gigabytes solid state for the price of a hard drive. There are still concerns regarding write cycles that will need to be addressed. File systems that tend to favour particular regions of a disk will limit the lifespan of solid state memory, where file systems that literally choose random empty blocks will maximise the lifespan.If you think about the files that fragment, they don't tend to be large (with the exception of databases, but they are designed to not worry about fragmentation). Large files tend to be multimedia, it is not a mp3 collection is going to suffer file fragmentation. Other files are more likely to fragment, so in the medium term solutions will tend to have the more static files stored on hard drive technology, and the files that change on solid state. Solid state walks all over hard drives in terms of access time.And yes, this will happen soon. I have been using a flash based PC in our lab for some tests this week.
adolfojpAug 18, 2006
This is an article that would have benefited greatly from a slashdot discussion.All the comments that are in this Digg thread are of the"No it doesn't" "Yes it does n00b" type.I feel a little bit dumber and I will get modded down even if this comment is technically correct.
jefffmAug 18, 2006
flashdrives...?
gmorganAug 19, 2006
Linux can now do everything. Soon it will replace your girlfriend as well.
grumpyrainAug 19, 2006
Looking forward, fragmentation is going to become even less of an issue. Not saying that the file systems that currently fragment files won't, but that the performance penalties will dissappear.So what is the problem with fragmentation? Put simply, it is hard drive technology. Data are stored on the magnetised surface of the platters, which are spinning under a read/write head.With such a storage system, it is ideal that data is stored in close physical proximity. Even though disks spin between 5200 and 15000RPM, fragmentation can cause significant delays in receiving the data. Also, reading and writing data to the outer tracks is much faster (ie double speed) to the inner tracks, because, well just look at a circle.The designers of many popular file systems took these physical characteristics of hard drive storage technology into account when designing their file systems. There is no good reason to prefer data to be written to the first blocks of the disk, or to prefer that files are not fragmented other than on disk based technology this gives better performance.So what is likely to happen? Solid state memory is now offering capacities large and cheap enough to be considered for basic installations. We are not talking about massive DivX collection sized storage capacities, but we are currently getting several Gigabytes solid state for the price of a hard drive. There are still concerns regarding write cycles that will need to be addressed. File systems that tend to favour particular regions of a disk will limit the lifespan of solid state memory, where file systems that literally choose random empty blocks will maximise the lifespan.If you think about the files that fragment, they don't tend to be large (with the exception of databases, but they are designed to not worry about fragmentation). Large files tend to be multimedia, it is not a mp3 collection is going to suffer file fragmentation. Other files are more likely to fragment, so in the medium term solutions will tend to have the more static files stored on hard drive technology, and the files that change on solid state. Solid state walks all over hard drives in terms of access time.And yes, this will happen soon. I have been using a flash based PC in our lab for some tests this week.
yahoofromAug 19, 2006
Isn't it obvious? Hackers are lazy. That's what hacker is!
idonthackAug 19, 2006
@ucg1changing packages = update frequently = lots of file size changes