Re: Using extra computer resources

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by Simon Edwards on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @03:54

It should also be noted that:

a) if you index the contents of file just after it has been modified, then it is probably still in the system's disk cache.

b) Most desktop hard disks are not kept busy 100% of the time. They are often doing nothing. This wasted time can be used for indexing. The inder will also need stop what it is doing when something more important (like the user) wants to use the hard disk.

There is no reason for search indexing to hurt.

Before everyone gets the wrong impression about Scott's work, content indexing *is not* what it is all about. Although it looks like it will play a part, the idea is to record the context and 'links' between things and documents that users create implicitly by just using their desktop and applications.

just IMHO of course.

--
Simon

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by koos on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @08:59

> There is no reason for search indexing to hurt.

Is there already a way (or always has been w/o me knowing it :-)) to do disk indexing w/o trashing the disk caches?

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by Simon Edwards on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @10:18

> Is there already a way to do disk indexing w/o trashing the disk caches?

nope,

but you don't have to constantly thrash the hard disk either. That is only needed when building the _initial_ index.

--
Simon

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by Aaron J. Seigo on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @15:29

and even the initial indexing can probably be mitigated somewhat by being run as a lazy background process.

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by koos on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @16:31

I don't understand what you mean with thrash the hard disk. You said that it should run if hdd is idle and it wouldn't hurt performance. But in the morning, after updatedb has ran, my system is a lot slower (that's what I meant with the disk cache being trashed). Well at least on linux, their is no API that I know of to skip disk caching while indexing (or eg. playing a DVD).
So, how do you manage to not hurt performance then?

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Re: Using extra computer resources
by Scott Wheeler on Thursday 03/Mar/2005, @18:16

It's becoming a requirement of modern kernels to have useful (i.e. not dnotify) mechanisms for notifying user-space of file system changes. At least on Linux there's a reasonable chance that by the time this stuff is ready for the mainstream that inotify will also be something we can rely on.

We'll see. But these really aren't the issues that we're worrying about now, premature optimization being the root of all evil and all that.

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