UFS2 optimization for many small files

[Thomas Herrlin]

Nguyen Tam Chinh wrote:
> Greetings,
>
> We're going to build a server with some 1Tb of over 500 million small
> files with size from 0,5k to 4k.  I'm wonder if the ufs2 can handle
> this kind of system well. From newfs(8) the min block size is 4k. This
> is not optimal in our case, a 1k or 0,5k block is more effective IMHO.
> I'd be happy if anyone can suggest what does fragment (block/8) in the
> ufs2 mean and how this parameter works. I know It's better to read the
> full ufs2 specification, but hope that someone here can give a hint.
> Please advice with optimizations or tricks.
> Thank you very much.
>
If all else fails; try "divide and conquer" by having one filesystem per 
subdirectory. Unless you plan on having all files in a single dir?! Also 
look at how the squid proxy stores its files using a hashed dir structure.
Another alternative is storing the data in a database if you don't need 
direct random RW file access..