On Apr 10, 1994 at 10:52, Paul Markham of 3:711/934.1 wrote:

 PM> I've got a 486 DX2/66. The message base is stored on a FAT partition with
 PM> a 2MB cache and lazy write turned on. The disk drive with the message
 PM> base is a Maxtor 540MB with 8.5 ms access time.

..and you have at least 16Mb RAM, right?  That accounts for the 2+Mb memory
that Squish is reporting, and explains why your throughput is so much
faster than mine.

Only i486DX 33MHz, message database on HPFS partition, on a Conner CP30104
116Mb IDE driver, with an access time of around 11ms (give or take a few). 
Cache settings are:

          DiskIdle:    65000 milliseconds
            MaxAge:    65000 milliseconds
        BufferIdle:    16000 milliseconds
        Cache size:      384 kbytes
Lazy writes are enabled.

Machine only has 8Mb RAM, and has occasion to swap when running multiple
compilers (along with the other mishmash running in the background).  The
best throughput that I have still recorded in my logs is 12/s (it's been
higher, but not often).

 PM> The other approach (the one I use) is to set the maximum number of days
 PM> to keep. In this case Squish just tosses the message without checking to
 PM> see if any messages should be deleted. BTW, the number of days seems to
 PM> be based on when the messages got tossed rather than the date entered in
 PM> the message header.

Ditto - this is the approach I use, too.

 PM> If you use the second approach, then you have to run SQPACK to delete all
 PM> the old records. It also packs the database to remove the unused space. I
 PM> usually run it every couple of days, but you can run it as often as you
 PM> like. On a large message base it could take a while though.

I run it in the background from a cron job at 1:00am every morning
(assuming I'm using the computer then, which is a pretty safe bet); 
generally doesn't take too long - but then again, when you're not watching
it you don't really care.

 AM>> For crying out loud - I've got a WD 500Mb HDD with <11mS
access times, I
 AM>> should be getting some decent stats... :(
 PM>
 PM> Ah, so you've got a slow hard disk then. No wonder 

You should see my shopping list.  :-)

 PM> There's a parameter in the Squish configuration file called 'buffers'. If 
 PM> you haven't already, make it 'buffers large' and see if it helps.

Already done.


    - dave
    david{at}harpo.nepean.uws.edu.au

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