Re: Enhancement request -- performance improvement

[rh]

Jim Meyering wrote:
> rh <address@hidden> wrote:
>
>   
> > Hello,
> > Running du -sk on an apache disk cache containing 10GB of data and
> > 30,000 directories and   files
> > I see du using maybe .03% of the cpu.  It takes an hour for it to complete.
> >     
>
> If you have an old version, and depending on how it's configured,
> ext3 can be very slow when operating on directories containing
> many entries.
>   

Yes, everything seems slow.  It's a redhat box too.... I will havve to 
visit some ext3 settings
I suppose.  Maybe noatime, et. al.

>   
> > Are there any plans to make du multi-threaded?
> >     
>
> No.  That wouldn't help.
>
>   
> > Or otherwise improve it's performance?
> >     
>
> Patches welcome, but it's already pretty well-optimized,
> since it uses fts.
>   

Sorry, fts?  My TLA guessing is DOA these days.
>   
> > Is it filesystem sensitive? We are using ext3.
> >     
>
> Yes.  File system type and options will definitely affect performance.
>