Re: journal size reiserfs vs reiser4

[michael chang <thenewme91@gmail.com>]

On 9/2/05, Matt Stegman <matts@ksu.edu> wrote:
> As far as repacking goes, I believe xfs_fsr refuses to defrag files if too
> little space is free.  If it's too hard to program a repacker to operate
> efficiently with only a few megabytes free, simply program it to exit with
> error when less than 5% disk is free.

I'd rather leave the repacker running inefficiently if it'll mean
it'll run more efficiently in the future.  [I believe Windows 9x's
repacker could get away with having just one free cluster if
necessary, although it'd have been painfully slow.]  Sometimes, I
can't clear off files unless I archive them, but they won't archive
unless they read fast enough (and fragmentation slows them down just
enough so they won't read fast enough - due to weird time constaints
that are built into the program that shouldn't be there).

It's possible to defragment tons of really small files with less than
5%, and that number changes with the size of the HD (you can't use an
arbirtrary number like 15%, like Windows XP, because that varies
heavily -- even if you had 50% free, if there were no two continous
free clusters, you couldn't defragment with the defragmenter in XP --
I don't want this kind of behaviour as the only way to do repack
things in case I end up in a weird spot.)

That said, I'd be half-satisfied if a repacker is released months or
years earlier because it doesn't efficiently handle weird cases (so
long as it remembers to try and repack free space too).  As for the 5%
error; a warning is safer.  Either that, or put in a force option to
get around the "error".

-- 
~Mike
 - Just my two cents
 - No man is an island, and no man is unable.