From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: geoff@collyer.net
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] [reminder] pointer to Plan 9 FAQ
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Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 23:42:39 -0700
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The standalone file server gets more use at the Labs than kfs does.
However, I've used kfs over the years without incident.  kfs gets used
in laptops quite a bit, so that they can run standalone.  Others have
experienced kfs corruption (notably on the standalone systems at the
Labs) but I don't know if those were due to kfs bugs or hardware
failures.  I believe that kfs bugs have been fixed over the years.

It's really better to use a standalone file server for performance
too.  kfs is slower and less versatile.  That doesn't mean that you
have to spend a fortune.  Now that there's support for IDE disks and
mirroring in the file server, one can buy a suitable system for under
$1,000 and prices continue to drop.  Don't skimp on RAM; a big RAM
cache helps performance.  Half a gigabyte costs about $80.  Processor
speed, on the other hand, isn't terribly important.

Ultimately I don't trust magnetic media.  Tapes rot, stretch, jam and
magnetic fields decay, and disks crash.  Moving cross-country has
killed Seagate SCSI disks.  Only optical media are worth the effort it
takes to record backups on them.