On 11/3/07, Rik van Riel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > On Fri, 02 Nov 2007 23:08:23 -0400 > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > > IBM's AIX supported file system compression on the JFS filesystem > > years ago. I was able to get up to 30% throughput increases by > > converting the /usr filesystem to compressed - because even a 33mhz > > Power chipset could read in 5 512-byte blocks and decompress it to > > the original 4K faster than the disk could read in 8 512-byte > > blocks. > > > Given that today there's an even *bigger* disparity in CPU speed > > versus disk speed, I'd be surprised if it doesn't help today too. > > The problem is that disk seek times have not gotten much > faster over the years, while disk throughput rates have > skyrocketed. > > Transferring a little less data is not going to help you > when 80% of your disk time is spent seeking, not reading > or writing.
This sounds like flash based media are an ideal candidate for compression. No seek times to speak of, transfer rates that are lower than those of disks and limited capacity. I believe JFFS2 (a flash filesystem) allready does compression though. - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/
