Re: [9fans] lucio-

["Russ Cox" <rsc@plan9.bell-labs.com>]

> I believe that the current implementation of dump snapshotting
> bogs down the fileserver so it would be annoying to run it
> when people are doing work and that is why dump snapshotting
> runs in the wee hours at Bell Labs.

Another advantage (I don't know whether it is a reason) is that
5am is a time when things are reasonably quiet.  The files as
they are at 5am is more likely to be something I want to remember than
what they are at 3pm, say, when things are typically in flux.

If anyone cares, here's the elapsed times for the last week of dumps:

mon 2:32
tue 3:22
wed 3:48
thu 2:58
fri 3:48
sat 4:12
sun 2:29
mon 2:22

As you say, it would not be hard at all to use something like sequence
numbers to make the dump faster.  Perhaps that is what NetApp does.
I'm still not convinced that allowing anyone to force a dump
really helps with the revision control problem though.

Personally, I like the fact that the dump takes a few minutes.
When I get on a bad sleep schedule, the dump is usually enough
to convince me to stop what I'm doing and go to bed.

Russ