SVR4 ufs file system reliability

[Andy Crump]

>I have experimented with sVr4.0 version 2.0 and can only say that the
>ufs file system is horribly unreliable. Shortly after reading about
>100 mbytes from a tape (but well after the time the automatic update
>program waits to write the stuff out to the disk) I got a panic,
>and fsck went on and on complaining about my file systems...
>I went back to sVr3.2.
>Apparently the sVr4.0 ufs file system doesn't get sync-ed properly
>by the automatic syncing deamon...


In version 2.0 there are small windows in the VM subsystem that will
cause a panic and corrupt the ufs filesystem.  Generally these have
not been a problem.  I had been running version 2.0 with only ufs
filesystems for 3 months on my workstation and had no problems.  

Problems with version 2.0 and ufs that I know will hurt you is if you
have a filesytem with greater than 64k inodes.  This will definitely
hose you.  Generally, I was able to create ufs filessystems in the
360meg range safely.

To my knowledge these problems are all being addressed in the next
version of SVR4 which should be alot more stable.
--

    -- Andy Crump

    ...!tektronix!reed!littlei!andyc | andyc at littlei.intel.com
    ...!uunet!littlei!andyc          | andyc at littlei.uu.net

Disclaimer: Any opinions expressed here are my own and 
            not representive of Intel Corportation.