From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Date: Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:37:33 +1100 From: Sam Watkins To: Fans of the OS Plan 9 from Bell Labs <9fans@9fans.net> Message-ID: <20091021163733.GF10118@nipl.net> References: <4030fb6ae37f8ca8ae9c43ceefbdf57b@ladd.quanstro.net> <20091019155738.GB13857@nipl.net> <4ADD1D76.8050603@maht0x0r.net> <20091021154323.GA10118@nipl.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11) Subject: Re: [9fans] Barrelfish Topicbox-Message-UUID: 8d743b8a-ead5-11e9-9d60-3106f5b1d025 On Wed, Oct 21, 2009 at 09:11:10AM -0700, Russ Cox wrote: > > Can you give one example of a slow task that you think cannot benefit much > > from parallel processing? > > Rebuilding a venti index is almost entirely I/O bound. Perhaps I should have specified a processor-bound task. I don't know much about venti or its indexes, but "rebuilding" an index sounds like a bad idea anyway. I suppose you could make an index that updates progressively? or does this happen in the event of a crash or something? If someone wants to use a massively parallel computer for IO-bound tasks, they should have massively parallel IO and media to go with it. Sam