Re: hammer_alloc_data panic

[Matthew Dillon <dillon@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

:>     space to do the remainder with no limitations:
:>
:> 	hammer reblock /home 25
:> 	hammer reblock /home 50
:> 	hammer reblock /home 75
:> 	hammer reblock /home 90
:> 	hammer reblock /home
:> 	whew...
:
:What penalty would there be (time taken, perhaps?) to have this be the
:default iterative behavior when reblocking?

    Basically just time and disk bandwidth, since it would have to scan
    the B-Tree multiple times.  It's a good idea.  To really make it work 
    well the filesystem needs to be able to provide feedback to the
    hammer utility as to the level of fragmentation.

    Ultimately some form of automation will make this a non-issue.  My
    preference is a thread initiated by the filesystem itself which
    does a slow iteration over the B-Tree.  At the very least it could
    measure the fragmentation and provide the feedback that the hammer
    utility needs.  Some careful thought is needed to come up with the
    proper solution.

    There's just no time to think it through before the release, we will have
    to do it afterwords.  First adopters are going to be well aware of the
    issues so there's no rush.  I think our best bet for the release
    is simply to document the issue as fully as possible.

    --

    HAMMER creates somewhat of a new paradigm, requiring people to think
    about storage a bit differently then they would normally.  It fits
    very well with the massive amounts of storage that is now becoming
    available.  What do you with a terrabyte drive that, short of piracy,
    would take years to fill up?  With HAMMER the whole point is to run
    it on large storage media and in full historical mode (hence why that
    is the default), so you get free snapshots and fine-grained backups.

					-Matt
					Matthew Dillon 
					<dillon@backplane.com>