[Gluster-users] very bad performance on small files

[Rudi Ahlers]

On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 7:58 PM, Jacob Shucart <jacob at gluster.com> wrote:
> For web hosting it is best to put user generated content(images, etc) on
> Gluster but to leave application files like PHP files on the local disk.
> This is because a single application file request could result in 20 other
> file requests since applications like PHP use includes/inherits, etc.
> This kind of thing is fine on local disks, but when you're talking about a
> distributed filesystem the network latency starts to add up since 1
> request to the web server results in a bunch of file requests.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: gluster-users-bounces at gluster.org
> [mailto:gluster-users-bounces at gluster.org] On Behalf Of Max Ivanov
> Sent: Friday, January 14, 2011 6:09 AM
> To: Burnash, James
> Cc: gluster-users at gluster.org
> Subject: Re: [Gluster-users] very bad performance on small files
>
>> Gluster - and in fact most (all?) parallel filesystems are optimized for
> very large files. That being the case, small files are not retrieved as
> efficiently, and result in a larger number of file operations in total
> because there are a fixed number for each file accessed.
>
>
> Which makes glusterfs perfomance unacceptable for web hosting purposes =(
> _______________________________________________


So what can one use for webhosting purposes?

We use XEN / KVM virtual machines, hosted on NAS devices but the NAS
devices doesn't have an easy upgrade path. We literally have to rsync
all the data to the new device and then shutdown all the machines on
the old one and restart them on the new one. They don't provide  100%
uptime either. So I'm looking for something with easier upgrade
(GlusterFS can do this) and better uptime (again, GlusterFS can do
this).

But it's clear that GlusterFS isn't made for small files, so what else
could work well for us?
-- 
Kind Regards
Rudi Ahlers
SoftDux

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