In a message to Anthony about "tobruk bug", Paul said:

AM> I'm lucky to get half your slowest rate, typically 1/4 - about 10-15
AM> messages/second.  What sort of system do you have?

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

Well this could have something to do with it!  2Mb cache...  16Mb ram I
assume...  8.5mS... 

PM> I also sort the inbound packets into area + subject + date
PM> + time order. Having them in area order seems to speed up
PM> Squish, although I loose some time sorting the packets.

Does Squish do this sorting, or is it something you do?

PM> There are two choices for deleting old records. You can set
PM> a maximum number of messages (as you have) and Squish will
PM> delete anything over that limit when it tosses. Obviously
PM> this can slow it down quite a lot. I've got no idea how
PM> much difference it makes if it doesn't have to delete any
PM> records during tossing.

I recently upped the limit on a few of the echos at their limits, and
gained not much at all - which is strange, because originally, it was
twice as fast as current when the echos weren't full, up to 25msg/sec.

PM> The other approach (the one I use) is to set the maximum number of
PM> days to keep. In this case Squish just tosses the message without
PM> checking to see if any messages should be deleted.

Trouble is some echos like OS/2 come in in big lumps and could overflow
the 5200 mark quite easily before Sqpack gets to run, no?

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

If Squish can delete old messages when it hits the set limit (4000 say),
then why can't it automatically delete old messages by date in the same
way without having to run Sqpack afterwards?

AM> For crying out loud - I've got a WD 500Mb HDD with <11mS access
AM> times, I should be getting some decent stats... :(

PM> Ah, so you've got a slow hard disk then. No wonder 

Hey, I was getting about 5msgs/sec when I had the old 20mS Quantums on a
FAT partition chockers with DELDIR enabled!!

I think the stats for the WD vary depending on how much the benchmark
wanks - Sometimes it even gets into the 9.somethings...

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

Already done from day one. :(

BTW, the clips from your logs had Squish terminating with about 2Mb
free - why do you have 2Mb free and I have 512Kb free?

'tnt, Amfony.                                                              
                 
--- Maximus/2 2.01wb