Re: obscure question?

Jason wrote:
>
> Nuno,
> now you've given me a new question... what does AFAIK stand for??
>
> seriously, thanks... i was sure there was an OS-related determinant behind
> the frequency at which the cache is written to disk. but now you've raised
> other questions in my mind like... what other effects does sector size have?
> for instance, if i wanted to create a partition with smallest allowable
> sectors (whatever that number is) would this affect performance on disk i/o
> for the other data stored there? if so, could i instead create a small
> partition of that size sector dedicated to spooling files? what if that
> partition existed on a remote nt box to which i would spool across the
> network, would the sector size of the remote disk still correspond to the
> frequency of writes to disk or does nt write a temp file locally and then
> move it to the remote disk?
>
> i'm not trying to be a pain here, i know the benefit realized would not
> equal the effort to carry this all out... i'm really just curious from a
> theortical standpoint.... if you happen to know (you sound intimately
> involved with nt), please feel free to respond, but maybe i should post this
> question to an nt group and see if anyone bites? in any case, thanks for
> the info... now you've really piqued my curiosity!
>
> "Nuno Souto" <nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam> wrote in message
> news:3bcd7019.6811573_at_news...
> > In a valiant and sublime effort,Jason
> > dipped a thumbnail in soot and doodled:
> >
> > >out. i'm guessing this is an OS-related issue since i don't think Oracle
> > >sets this parameter. i'm running on Windows NT 4 and Oracle 8i. i
> suppose
> > >there might be another way to monitor the script, but i'm really curious
> > >about this. has anyone else ever wondered about this... or am i a lone
> > >nut-case???
> > >
> > >
> >
> > Interesting question. AFAIK:
> >
> > NT uses a write-behind cache by default. So you'll never see the
> > output immediately after it's created. Also, the frequency of writes
> > to disk is directly linked to the sector size the partition was
> > formatted with. Usually, the C: drive is formatted by default with a
> > sector size of 512. Other drive/partitions may be formatted with
> > other default sector sizes, usually larger than 512. You may well
> > find that you can follow the output better if you spool to a file oin
> > the C: drive.
> >
> >
> > Cheers
> > Nuno Souto
> > nsouto_at_optushome.com.au.nospam

FWIW - "As Far As I Know"

(For what its worth...)

:-)

-- 
==============================
Connor McDonald

http://www.oracledba.co.uk

"Some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue..."