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Re: Sparse files in the real world

To: jgl@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Sparse files in the real world
From: Stewart Smith <stewart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, 21 Jun 2006 14:11:52 +1000
Cc: linux-xfs@xxxxxxxxxxx
In-reply-to: <44985423.2090803@johngroves.net>
References: <44985423.2090803@johngroves.net>
Sender: xfs-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxx
On Tue, 2006-06-20 at 15:01 -0500, John Groves wrote:
> I am working on a data management subsystem, and would appreciate any 
> insight people could share about real world applications that generate 
> sparse files.  Can anybody share information or pointers to applications 
> that generate (and benefit from) sparse files?

Virtualization of machines.

big file system image, only parts of it are written to.

also (mostly testing) database data files. often when running a test
suite you'll just want to "generate the x MB file" as quickly as
possible and not worry about the overhead during runtime of doing sparse
files as you're only going to be writing to a small portion.
-- 
Stewart Smith (stewart@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)
http://www.flamingspork.com/

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