wdfs vs sshfs vs the perfect fs

Kelly Jones kelly.terry.jones at gmail.com
Tue Nov 25 17:26:22 PST 2008


I recently installed wdfs and sshfs on my FreeBSD server + mounted a
filesystem under each.

"df -k" and "tail -r" work great under sshfs.

"df -k" doesn't work under wdfs (always shows 100% usage) and "tail
-r" just hangs.

sshfs also seems a little faster. Is all this normal?

I figured webdav would handle "tail -r" better using HTTP's "Range"
parameter, but I guess not. How does sshfs get to the end of a file so
fast w/o doing a sequential read?

What's the best way to mount a remote disk assuming I don't have root
access on the target server? sshfs? wdfs? something else?

I assume 'mount' is best if I do have root access.

Specially interested in "random access" files like DBMs or
MySQL/PostgreSQL files.

Reason I ask: many hosting providers offer insane amounts of disk
space for next to nothing, but they limit what you can do. By mounting
the large disk, I can add virtual space to my more expensive dedicated
server. It's slow, but useful when disk access speed is not an issue.

-- 
We're just a Bunch Of Regular Guys, a collective group that's trying
to understand and assimilate technology. We feel that resistance to
new ideas and technology is unwise and ultimately futile.


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