You are wrong in thinking sparse files are a problem. Having sparse
files quite a nifty feature, I would say.
Are we talking about webazolver or OpenBSD?
I'd argue that relying on the OS handling sparse files this way instead
of handling your own log data in an efficient way *is* a problem, as
evidenced by Daniels post. After all, it's reasonable to copy data to,
say, a different drive and expect it to take about as much space as the
original.
Just as feedback the size showed something like 150MB or so as the
original file on OpenBSD. Using RSYNC to copy it over makes it almost
5GB in size, well I wouldn't call that good. But again, before I say no
definitely, there is always something that I may not understands, so I
am welling to leave some space for that here. But not much! (:>
On the other hand, I agree with you that handling sparse files
efficiently is rather neat in an OS.
I am not sure that the OS handle it well or not. Again, no punch
intended, but if it was, why copy no data then? Obviously something I
don't understand for sure.
However, here is something I didn't include in my previous email with
all the stats and may be very interesting to know. I didn't think it was
so important at the time, but if you talk about handling it properly,
may be it might be relevant.
The test were done with three servers. The file showing ~150MB in size
was on www1. Then copying it to www2 with the -S switch in rsync
regardless got it to ~5GB. Then copying the same file from www2 to www3
using the same rsync -S setup go that file back to the size it was on
www1. So, why not in the www2 in that case. So, it the the OS, or is
that the rsync. Was it handle properly or wasn't it? I am not sure. If
it was, then the www2 file should not have been ~5GB should it?
So the picture was
www1->www2->www3
www1 cache DB show 150MB
rsync -e ssh -aSuqz --delete /var/www/sites/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/www/sites
www2 cache DB show ~5GB
rsync -e ssh -aSuqz --delete /var/www/sites/ [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/var/www/sites
www3 cache DB show ~150MB
Why not 150Mb on www2???
One think that I haven't tried and regret not have done that not to know
is just copying that file on www1 to a different name and then copying
it again to it's original name and check the size at the and and the
transfer of that file as well I without the -S switch to see if the OS
did copy the empty data or not.
I guess the question would be, should it, or shouldn't it do it?
My own opinion right now is the file should show the size it really is.
So, if it is 5GB and only 100MB is good on it, shouldn't it show it to
be 5GB? I don't know, better mind then me sure have the answer to this
one, right now, I do not for sure.
