Re: [PATCH, resend] relatime: Let relatime update atime at least once per day

[Matthew Wilcox <matthew@wil.cx>]

On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 10:24:55PM +0100, ?ric Piel wrote:
> Yes, it might bring important drawbacks: performance-wise, relatime will
> become more like atime, making it much less useful. There is also a
> significant number of desktop computers that are turned on once a day,
> the boot time may get hindered by those additional writes.

Huh?  Nobody's ever claimed that atime writes cost a significant amount
of performance.  The problem that relatime is designed to solve is
*spin-up* when a file is accessed.

> Actually, you are changing relatime from a boolean condition (maximum
> one additional write per write) to a atime with a coarse grain (maximum
> one additional write per day). Today you found a use case that needs a
> precision of one day. Tomorrow, someone else will find a use case that
> needs a precision of one hour. So maybe what is actually needed is a
> third option, a "grainatime" option where you can change the precision
> of the atime.

You're really over-thinking this.

-- 
Matthew Wilcox				Intel Open Source Technology Centre
"Bill, look, we understand that you're interested in selling us this
operating system, but compare it to ours.  We can't possibly take such
a retrograde step."