From: Stewart Smith <stewart@flamingspork.com>
To: Olly Betts <olly@survex.com>, notmuch@notmuchmail.org
In-Reply-To: <slrnhkvpvr.2rf.olly@msgid.survex.com>
References: <5641883d1001140730l22832715ld6bdc95c9938d314@mail.gmail.com>
	<slrnhkvpvr.2rf.olly@msgid.survex.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Feb 2010 14:53:26 +1100
Message-ID: <874olhbzux.fsf@willster.local.flamingspork.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Subject: Re: [notmuch] Notmuch performance problems on OSX
Precedence: list

On Fri, 15 Jan 2010 03:58:50 +0000 (UTC), Olly Betts <olly@survex.com> wrote:
> One difference between OS X and other systems is that OS X supports the
> F_FULLSYNC ioctl, and other systems don't (currently, at least AFAIK)
> and Xapian uses that if it is available to ensure that changes have
> actually made it to disk:
> 
> http://trac.xapian.org/ticket/288
> 
> On other systems, it uses fdatasync() or fsync(), which typically just
> ensure that the data has left the OS - it can sit in disk controller or
> drive caches for potentially seconds longer.  This call happens once
> per table for every (explicit or implicit) flush on a database.

At least if you OS and file system don't hate you (e.g. XFS on Linux),
then fsync() really does flush the drive cache.

Also keep in mind that the OSX file system (HFS+) was great for
1985. It's essentially single threaded :/

-- 
Stewart Smith