[Linux-cluster] rm -r on gfs2 filesystem is very slow

[Jos Vos]

On Wed, Jul 08, 2009 at 01:58:30PM -0700, Peter Schobel wrote:

> I am trying to set up a four node cluster but am getting very poor
> performance when removing large directories. A directory approximately
> 1.6G  in size takes around 5 mins to remove from the gfs2 filesystem
> but removes in around 10 seconds from the local disk.
> 
> I am using CentOS 5.3 with kernel 2.6.18-128.1.16.el5PAE.
> 
> The filesystem was formatted in the following manner: mkfs.gfs2 -t
> wtl_build:dev_home00 -p lock_dlm -j 10
> /dev/mapper/VolGroupGFS-LogVolDevHome00 and is being mounted with the
> following options: _netdev,noatime,defaults.

This is something you have to live with.  GFS(2) works great, but with
large(r) directories performance is extremely bad and for many
applications a real show-stopper.

There have been many discussions on this list, with GFS parameter tuning
suggestions that at least for me didn't result in any improvements, with
promises that the problems would be solved in GFS2 (I see no significant
performance improvements between GFS and GFS2), etc.

-- 
--    Jos Vos <jos at xos.nl>
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