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



 PM>> here's an extract from my Squish log showing the tossing

 PM>> times I get (without reply linking)



 PM>> + 24 Mar 17:03:23 SQSH End.  Toss=199 (49/s), sent=0 (0/s), mem=2660K

 PM>> + 25 Mar 16:36:32 SQSH End.  Toss=2205 (81/s), sent=0 (0/s), mem=2652K



 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?



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



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



 PM>> I don't put a limit on the number of messages in each

 PM>> conference. Instead I have set the number of days to keep

 PM>> and just run SQPACK every so often.



 AM> Does this make it faster?



dunno.



 AM> Why do you have to run SQPACK?  How often, and what does it do?



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



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



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



 AM> For crying out loud - I've got a WD 500Mb HDD with <11mS access times, I

 AM> should be getting some decent stats... :(



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



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





Paul



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