[mythtv-users] thrashing hard drive

[Brad DerManouelian]

On Sep 24, 2008, at 2:19 PM, John Drescher wrote:

>>>> You can increase the buffer in linux so it writes to disk less
>>>> frequently (storing it in memory until it writes to disk), but if
>>>> you're swapping already, it wouldn't make much sense to start using
>>>> *more* memory.
>>>
>>> Where is this parameter for buffer size?  I assume this is a global
>>> parameter then and would apply to all disks?
>>
>> I was talking about using bdflush to decrease the amount of time data
>> is written to the disk.
>>
>> There are some performance tuning hints here:
>> http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/22005#22005
>>
>
> Isn't this for 2.4 kernels?
>
> Here is some 2.6 tuning advice:
> http://www.dba-oracle.com/t_tuning_linux_kernel_2_6_oracle.htm

Actually, I was thinking of pdflush and didn't find the thread I was  
thinking about until just now:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/251200

I still see things like:
bderman at mythtv:~$ ls -l /proc/sys/vm/dirty*
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-09-24 14:40 /proc/sys/vm/ 
dirty_background_ratio
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-09-24 14:40 /proc/sys/vm/ 
dirty_expire_centisecs
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-09-24 14:40 /proc/sys/vm/dirty_ratio
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 0 2008-09-24 14:40 /proc/sys/vm/ 
dirty_writeback_centisecs

So I would assume they still apply.

-Brad