True, but sequential reads are much much cheaper than seeks.
> If the enhanced directory blocks are cached and the
> pre-enhancement inode blocks wouldn't have been cached... that's
> probably a reasonable I/O improvement. If the enhanced directory
> blocks are not cached, and are not allocated consecutively and
> read-ahead... this could be a performance penalty.
No worse than the current arrangement where you need to seek to a
seperate part of the disk for inodes.
In the worst case it's the same as it was. In the best case it's faster.
> What it boils down to, I think, is that someone needs to
> implement this idea so it can be tested in real systems. The result
> of the tests will determine whether the time spend implementing it was
> worthwhile. :-)
Indeed. :)
Michael, agitating for an extra day in every week..