On Sun, 9 May 1999, Peter J. Braam wrote:

> Michael,
> 
> This is per server -- so it's NOT a good thing. 
> 
> We will be able to beef things up, but it will be really hard to get
> boyond memory mapping 2G, which only gives something like an 80GB file
> server.  At this size I'm expecting other problems to start cropping up. 
> 
> AFS does (I think) not have this limit.
> 
> I suspect a major change to deal with large server sizes will have to
> come to the agenda; it's doable but a lot of work. 
> 
> - Peter -
> 
> 

You are correct that AFS is not limited on fileserver sizing.  We run
quite a few fileservers with 4 to 6 25 gig partitions.  The performance
bottleneck we see is actually with our backups, and allowing a full backup
to complete within 24 hours over the network.  Don't forget to size your
whole installation when thinking about large fileservers, often times the
limitations occur in another component, but you don't think about it until
it's too late.
One drawback with AFS is the physical size of individual files.  The
limitation there is 2 gig I believe.  DFS 2.2 fixes this by allowing file
sizes as large as a single aggregate(partition in AFS) is.  So, a
fileserver comparable to the above description could have 4 25 gig files.

Is this type of performance capability something the Coda developers
believe is possible in the future, or have plans not progressed that far
to date?

Is there a wishlist document somewhere, so we can see what is proposed for
the finished product(if there is such a thing as 'finished')?  I would
like to hear some of the developers' opinions on where the project is
leading.

Thanks,
-Matt