Journaling - any benefits for a MacBook?
in [Mac Systems]
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From: Priam on 31 May 2010 21:24 On 05/31/2010 09:00 PM, nospam wrote: > In article<310520101727292379%aeiou(a)mostly.invalid>, Mark Conrad >> Yes indeed, there must be all of 1% of 64-bit app's around.<g> >> >> That hardly constitutes what most people think of when we >> use the word "plenty". > > it's quite a bit more than that. If you want all 64 bit apps, you must use a professional OS. Linux, for instance.
From: nospam on 31 May 2010 21:29 In article <hu1nag$ps1$1(a)news.eternal-september.org>, Priam <priam(a)notsosure.com> wrote: > If you want all 64 bit apps, you must use a professional OS. Linux, for > instance. nonsense.
From: Priam on 31 May 2010 21:35 On 05/31/2010 09:20 PM, Mark Conrad wrote: > So why am I bleating about this in a Mac "system" ng ? Excellent question! You say your Mac is underpowered for SR. You try to use Windows software on it and the help files don't install. You say you're about to call Dragon support and you won't tell that you're using using a Mac weakling. You say that you're spending thousand of dollars on software and equipment. So let me ask you once again: Why don't you solve all your problems by investing $1000 on a Core i7 system? Then, if there's anything wrong, you can call Dragon, speak the truth and stop losing your time and their time.
From: nospam on 31 May 2010 21:33 In article <310520101820594961%aeiou(a)mostly.invalid>, Mark Conrad <aeiou(a)mostly.invalid> wrote: > I was referring to 64-bit operation that is fully supported, not just > the hit or miss support it has right now. it's not hit or miss. > I have no illusions about how long it will take to properly implement > 64-bit capability to the full extent possible. you mean you have no clue about how long it will take. > It will take decades. I am just trying to speed it up ;-) it's already happened, long ago. > My new MacBook, with all the bells and whistles, does not > even have a 64-bit Kernel, nor 64-bit Extensions. if it's a core 2 duo macbook (late 2006 or later), it will run 64 bit apps just fine.
From: Mark Conrad on 31 May 2010 22:44
In article <isw-B1FA54.10554731052010@[216.168.3.50]>, isw <isw(a)witzend.com> wrote: > > Main reason is that I do not want to use up any more > > write cycles to the SSD than I absolutely had to, > > because present SSDs have a finite number of write > > cycles, then they are only good for doorstops. > > I hear that a lot, but in Real-Life (tm) use, does it really matter? > > If you translate write cycles into years (entirely possible, at least to > estimate), how many years of use do you expect? > > Because if it's, say, one year, then SSD is a bad investment in almost > any scenario, but if it's, say, 100 years (only an exponential factor of > two different), then it really doesn't matter at all. > > I have no idea what the answer is, but I think it should be known before > an informed decision whether to use or not use journaling (or even SSD) > could be made. > > Isaac Well of course it all depends on how often, how much, and how disk intensive the individual person uses their Mac. In my case I pay a steep premium for a little more speed, because of the nature of my work. I do not have to wait for my disk platter to spin around, others do. I do not have to be concerned about aircraft noise and vibration crashing the head of my disk drive, others do. (and yes, loud noises can be demonstrated to crash a hard disks head, especially at high altitudes, were the head "flies" lower to the spinning disk platter surface) Even jarring the Mac a little, such as lifting its corner to re-position it, risks crashing a head. No worry for me, I can bounce my Mac on a hard surface any time I want to. But I pay a price, and not in dollars. When I keep pounding away at one section of my SSD, as in journaling, I can "use up" the limited write cycles inherent in present SSD technology. The SSD senses that a section is "used up", so re-routes that bad section to a fresh section, effectively permanently bypassing the worn-out section. This is a technique called "wear leveling". When all the fresh sections are used up, the SSD is worthless, has to be replaced with a new $1,300 SSD. All this does not happen with a regular hard drive. I can pound away with journaling, at the same spot on the hard drive, night and day for years with no problems. So I adjust the way I use my Mac. When I need to compress a 160 GB file down to 20 GB, i do that operation on a different "regular" Mac that has an ordinary hard drive. It can take hours to compress. I eliminate journaling, relying instead on periodic saving of any new work-in-progress to an ext' drive. If for some reason my file system becomes scrambled because a bad app' went wild, and that has happened several times to me, mainly in my Windows partition, then I merely restore the entire Mac from a backup file. Is that an ideal solution? No, because it takes me almost an hour to restore OS X and Windows-7 to their original pristine state. But neither is journaling ideal. I would NEVER trust journaling to repair all the damage to my software caused by a buggy wild application. Everyone has to make their own decision about this, what is good for one person may be very bad for someone else. Mark- |