File System Performance Loss in Genera 8.0 (16X slower!)

[snicoud@atc.boeing.com (Stephen L. Nicoud)]

    Date: 6 Jul 90 15:34:17 GMT
    From: cogen@XN.LL.MIT.EDU

    What has happened to the network file system in going from Genera 7.2 to 8.0?
    By one measure, it is 16 TIMES SLOWER THAN BEFORE! I would like to know if
    anyone else has experienced this, or is it a problem with our local
    installation?

I can confirm this.

I had a directory with 120+ files on a Sun 3 (SunOS 3.4) (Yes,
I know this is an ancient version of the OS). With 8.0 it was
taking 65 to 70 seconds just to save a file from ZMACS to this
directory.  My symbolics sits in "NFS2 ReadDir" state for most
of the time.

As soon as I reaped all the hogs and deleted other files in
that directory, bring the total number of files down to under
40, the problem was significantly reduced.

I tried a similar set of tests using 7.2 and didn't have the
problem.

I thought the problem might have been because of the SunOS
version (3.4), but now that you report the problem in 4.0,
perhaps it is not.

BTW, NFS was the protocol used.

Steve