SPARSE files considered harmful - please revert
Max Bowsher
maxb@ukf.net
Sun May 18 23:34:00 GMT 2003
Martin Buchholz wrote:
> As a result, a non-empty but small sparse file takes up a minimum of
> 16*clustersize bytes on the disk. My measurements suggest an overhead
> of 32kb per file with a cluster size of 4kb.
I just thought I'd throw a few more numbers into the debate:
I patched Cygwin to respond to CYGWIN=sparse / CYGWIN=nosparse
Then, I did a cvs co winsup:
"Size on disc" of checked out dir, as shown in Windows properties box:
Sparse: 40.7MB
Not sparse: 43.6MB
OK, so sparse seems to win? But that makes no sense - backed up by noting
that for various individual sparse files, "Size on disc" is reporting a size
which is not an integer number of clusters.
Now, Properties of disc, look at "Used space":
Difference in creating sparse checkout: ~ 200MB !!!
Difference in creating normal checkout: ~ 40MB
Personally, I'm inclined to trust the overall disc stats more.
I think this evidence suggests that sparse files should NOT be on by default
in Cygwin.
Max.
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