[Lustre-discuss] formatting options

[Andreas Dilger]

On Sep 27, 2007  08:53 -0400, Robin Humble wrote:
> -i 1024 is often recommended when mkfs'ing the MDS/MDT.
> what about -b 1024?
> as most of the files on the MDT are 0 sized would this help too?
> less seeking, more files allowed?

There is no file data on the MDS, so that wouldn't help at all.
It would also severely limit the maximum size of directories
(something like 100k files).  It adds a LOT more overhead to the
filesystem metadata.  Also, if you create your inodes at the same
size as the blocks, and the default is 1 inode/block the entire
filesystem will be full of inodes and no room for anything else.

In the end, we don't support anything other than 4kB anyways (though
there is some chance it may work, we've never tested it).

Cheers, Andreas
--
Andreas Dilger
Principal Software Engineer
Cluster File Systems, Inc.