Jean Francois Martinez jfm512@free.fr wrote:
First of all it looks like the guy divided his 4GB disk in two 2G partitions and installed Reiser on one partition and EXT3 in the other. WRONG! Modern disks have more sectors in the outer, lower numbered tracks. Meaning that you will get higher throughput from hda1 than from hda2.
Wrong indeed. The same partition was used for all tests. One can give me a little credit, even if it hurts.
He also compiled the kernel as a benchmark. 99% of times this is the touchstone for lack of proper thinking in benchmarking.
Because I benchmarked an actual task that my readers are likely to perform?
Look, the benchmarks in the LWN articles were a low-value exercise, just to get a rough feel for the performance benefits claimed by reiser4. I believe I succeeded in that goal. Among other things, I turned up the fact that, if you fail to create your files in the right order, performance suffers significantly - something which the Namesys marketing literature somehow failed to mention.
jon
Jonathan Corbet Executive editor, LWN.net corbet@lwn.net