[thuh Freak]

i suspect that the 10 or so consecutive listings of update within the same second, are from one run of the program. i'd be more interested in knowing if anything is happening between update calls. i'm retissent to call it a hardware problem, b/c whenever i tend to think something is, it turns out i missed something obvious in software.

[Dave]

Maybe the sync is somehow failing without an error message. Then the OS notices that what's on the drive isn't the same as what's in RAM, and tries to sync it again. I have no idea how this could happen though.

Oh, have you tried resetting the Power Manager? I forget how to do it, but somebody here is bound to know.

[stevegong]

Originally Posted by Dave Maybe the sync is somehow failing without an error message. Then the OS notices that what's on the drive isn't the same as what's in RAM, and tries to sync it again. I have no idea how this could happen though. Oh, have you tried resetting the Power Manager? I forget how to do it, but somebody here is bound to know.

You know, that kinda makes sense. I have reset the ppower manager though and it changes nothing. Is it safe to assume at this point that some hardware is broken?

[Barto]

"WrMeta" is almost certainly adaptive hot file clustering moving files to your metadata zone.

When a file is opened on an HFS+ volume, the following conditions are tested:

• If the file is less than 20 MB in size
  
• If the file is not already busy
  
• If the file is not read-only
  
• If the file has more than eight extents
  
• If the system has been up for at least three minutes

If all of the above conditions are satisfied, the file is relocated -- it is defragmented on-the-fly.

WindowServer probably has an equally innocuous explanation for writing to your hard drive.

Barto

[Barto]

I ran fs_usage on my iBook with everything unplugged. I'm getting a hojillion of those "CACHE_HIT" things a second, from WindowServer, smbclient, xinetd, smbd, MDNSResponder, stuff from DirectoryServer, lookupd, you name it.

It would be nice to understand everything, sometimes you have to just "let it go" though.

[thuh Freak]

Originally Posted by Barto I ran fs_usage on my iBook with everything unplugged. I'm getting a hojillion of those "CACHE_HIT" things a second, from WindowServer, smbclient, xinetd, smbd, MDNSResponder, stuff from DirectoryServer, lookupd, you name it. It would be nice to understand everything, sometimes you have to just "let it go" though.

cache hits, if computer architecute taught me anything (and i did get an a in it), means the hd isn't actually touched. the os keeps an in-RAM cache of popular parts of the hd, and since ram is like a couple of orders of magnitude faster than hds its wicked, crazy, silly, crazy, wicked fast.

[stevegong]

THanks barto for the info, but I'm not sure what to make of it all. What does it mean?