On Tuesday 08 April 2008 09:16:15 pm Dave Costakos wrote:
> Sorry, I haven't replied to my thread, but I've been traveling :-).
>
> I see this same problem using 5.2 beta on x86_64 dom0 with 32-bit and 64-bit
> domU guests.
>
> For what it's worth, I have 100+ guests with Sparse images and once they are
> imaged, they seem to perform just fine to me and seem to save 40-80% of the
> disk space compared with nonsparse images.  So, I see a clear value in using
> sparse files and having them work.  Moreover, for those of use who don't use
> GUIs, sparse images are the default for the 'virt-install' tool from RHEL.
>
> Now, one thing I have noticed is that the slow formatting only seems to
> occur duing the install process.  If I attach a 2nd sparse disk to my VM
> after the install and run mkfs on it, it seems to me to perform comparably
> to physical hardware.  I just now attached a 150 GB sparse file to a running
> VM and made a file system on it in less than 2 minutes.  So, at least for
> me, the problem seems confied to the anaconda install.

Its not the formatting in anaconda that is slow, its the scribbling of all the packages into the sparse image that is slow. Anaconda does a mkfs behind the scenes just like you're doing by hand on a 2nd disk.

And yes, 5.2 improves xen guest I/O over 5.1, but its still not exactly stellar with sparse images.

--
Jarod Wilson
jwilson@redhat.com

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