Here the results of my measurements taken over the last couple of days. Summary:
null-export of source code from spinning disk, NTFS Linux: * packed f6 4x as fast as non-packed f6 * packed f7 20x as fast as non-packed f7 * packed f7 4x as fast as than packed f6 * non-packed f6 1.4x as fast as non-packed f7 -> you want f7 and you want packing null-log -v -g from spinning disk, NTFS Linux: * packed f7 6x as fast as packed f6 (non-packed not measured; very likely similar factors as above) null-export of source code from spinning disk, NTFS Windows: * packed f7 2.5x as fast as packed f6 (limited by USB2) Setup details: Repository: freebsd-base, r264989 (almost worst case of non-packed latest shard in packed repositories), ~3GB, dirs deltified. Server: svnserve 4G (Linux) / 1G (Windows) cache, -c 0, revprops cached Disk: USB3 spinning disk, NTFS format. Windows tests ran over USB2 limiting throughput to about 1/3. A thunderbolt SSD was used to determine the impact of I/O latency (Linux only). All measurements done in a "cold setup" using svn-bench. null-export produced 6,199 directories 58,000 files 782,836,361 bytes in files 326,397 properties 4,877,614 bytes in properties null-log -v -g produced 185,096 revisions, 528 merged in 823 merges 994,976 msg lines, 3,347 in merged revisions 1,109,675 changes, 115,618 in merged revisions Detailed results: null-export, USB3 HDD, fuse NTFS, Linux F6 packed 616s F7 packed 176s F7 nonpacked 3495s F6 nonpacked 2546s null-export, same HDD over USB2, NTFS, Windows F6 packed 834s F7 packed 342s (both were throughput limited) null-export, Thunderbold SSD, fuse NTFS, Linux F6 packed 24.2s F7 packed 18.8s F6 nonpacked 21.3s F7 nonpacked 34.7s (non-packed operation is latency limited on HDD) null-log, USB3 HDD, fuse NTFS, Linux F6 packed 809.101s F7 packed 134.636s null-log, Thunderbold SSD, fuse NTFS, Linux F6 packed 211.097s F7 packed 23.436s (operation is latency limited on HDD)