From 93e4f3d80c06e39e970672bc23331a5b9da183b5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: jkh Date: Sun, 11 Mar 2001 04:24:52 +0000 Subject: Document the softupdate stuff and also warn people against using it on root unless root is very large. --- usr.sbin/sysinstall/help/partition.hlp | 17 +++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 17 insertions(+) (limited to 'usr.sbin/sysinstall') diff --git a/usr.sbin/sysinstall/help/partition.hlp b/usr.sbin/sysinstall/help/partition.hlp index 6004d75..ef328df 100644 --- a/usr.sbin/sysinstall/help/partition.hlp +++ b/usr.sbin/sysinstall/help/partition.hlp @@ -109,6 +109,23 @@ slices. For FreeBSD partitions, you can also toggle the "newfs" state so that the partitions are either (re)created from scratch or simply checked and mounted (the contents are preserved). +If you set (S)oftUpdates on a filesystem, it will cause the +"Soft Updates" policy to be in effect for it. This basically causes +both metadata and data blocks to be written asynchronously to disk, +but with extra state information which causes the metadata and any +related data blocks to be committed in a single transaction. This +results in async metadata update speeds (which are considerably +faster than the default sync) without the potential for data loss +which could occur if you simply mounted the filesystem with purely +"async" update policy and then had a power failure. If you wish +to later turn the softupdates policy back off, use the command +"tunefs -n disable devicename". NOTE: It is probably not wise +to use this on your root filesystem unless you have a large +(e.g. non-standard size) root. The reason is that smaller filesystems +with significant activity can temporarily overflow if the soft updates +policy results in free'd blocks not being "garbage collected" as fast +as they're being requested. + When you're done, type `Q' to exit. No actual changes will be made to the disk until you (C)ommit from the -- cgit v1.1