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Mike Landi
July 22nd, 2006, 10:25 AM
Does anyone have an idea about how large (or small) a disk cache is optimal for Moz 1.5?

I ask because I was using 512MB, because I had the space. When I did some digging in the FasterFox extension, I saw a recommendation that anything over about 76MB is not recommended. I can't seem to find any explanation for that.

I'm going to try the smaller setting, but I wonder what "optimal" (ha, ha) is?

ndebord
July 22nd, 2006, 12:23 PM
Does anyone have an idea about how large (or small) a disk cache is optimal for Moz 1.5?

I ask because I was using 512MB, because I had the space. When I did some digging in the FasterFox extension, I saw a recommendation that anything over about 76MB is not recommended. I can't seem to find any explanation for that.

I'm going to try the smaller setting, but I wonder what "optimal" (ha, ha) is?

Mike,

I use 10 megs for disk cache (pointed to a ram cache) and 5 megs for memory.

Judy G. Russell
July 22nd, 2006, 06:35 PM
I can't find an easy explanation, but I tend to use about 10Mb as well.

Gary Maltzen
July 23rd, 2006, 12:55 AM
The optimal cache size depends on the amount of available disk, the amount of available memory, the speed of the CPU and the bandwidth of your connection. You want it small enough so that you don't spend a lot of time searching the cache when it would be just a fast to download and large enough that you don't download when it would be more efficient to read it from cache.

When doing development I typically set the cache to zero to insure that I am getting the page actually on the server. As I type this my cache is currently set to 50MB (3400+ Athlon64, 1G, 100G free, cable).

Mike Landi
July 24th, 2006, 08:43 AM
I'm going to try the settings FasterFox recommends. 65MB for memory and 75MB for disk. I'll see if that makes a difference on my 1.7Ghz, 512MB RDRAM P4.

Judy G. Russell
July 24th, 2006, 09:38 AM
I'm going to try the settings FasterFox recommends. 65MB for memory and 75MB for disk. I'll see if that makes a difference on my 1.7Ghz, 512MB RDRAM P4.It'll be interesting to know if you can tell a real difference.

Mike Landi
July 24th, 2006, 12:50 PM
So far today, no difference noticed.

Judy G. Russell
July 24th, 2006, 06:45 PM
I'm really not surprised. I think the stuff is pretty well optimized to do its best, no matter what.

Mike Landi
July 25th, 2006, 08:39 AM
I do seem to have a little more speed with the smaller disk cache. It just may be my imagination.

Judy G. Russell
July 25th, 2006, 03:02 PM
I do seem to have a little more speed with the smaller disk cache. It just may be my imagination.Frankly, the only thing I've ever done that caused a noticeable difference in performance was upgrade to a new computer with a faster CPU and more RAM!

ndebord
July 25th, 2006, 11:10 PM
I do seem to have a little more speed with the smaller disk cache. It just may be my imagination.

Mike,

More than I wanted to know about how to determine the optimum size for caches in Mozilla:


The restraint exercised by the prefetch algorithm -- not prefetching links that have less than 25% chance of being accessed -- governs the tradeoff between lowering latency and wasting bandwidth. Twenty-five percent was found to be the optimum point (from among every five percent) for balancing bandwidth waste against latency reduction.

http://www.usenix.org/publications/library/proceedings/usits99/full_papers/duchamp/duchamp_html/doc006.html

Mike Landi
July 26th, 2006, 08:34 AM
LOL! That does make a difference!

Mike Landi
July 26th, 2006, 08:35 AM
Yeah. TMI! <g>

Judy G. Russell
July 26th, 2006, 12:43 PM
LOL! That does make a difference!Funny, though, that I haven't had any "gotta have it" feeling about the new hardware in the past couple of years. I'm not all that much of a gamer, so I don't really need better hardware for more complex renderings, and even Photoshop runs pretty well on my machine. I may actually get five years out of my desktop before I want a new one.

Mike Landi
July 26th, 2006, 03:25 PM
The only "gotta have it" I had for computer equipment was for a new notebook. Since I got that, I've been quite happy with a 2Ghz processor.

Judy G. Russell
July 26th, 2006, 05:18 PM
The only "gotta have it" I had for computer equipment was for a new notebook. Since I got that, I've been quite happy with a 2Ghz processor.The only reason I had to have a new notebook was because my office wanted me to LOAN mine to a co-worker who is ... shall we say, technologically-impaired.

Mike Landi
July 27th, 2006, 01:33 PM
The only reason I had to have a new notebook was because my office wanted me to LOAN mine to a co-worker who is ... shall we say, technologically-impaired.

Uhh......


Yeah, right. Sure. Here, have my laptop. Wait, let me do one thing...


F...O....R....M....A....T......C.....:.......


....<g>

Judy G. Russell
July 29th, 2006, 02:03 PM
And that is literally what I did. There was no way I was leaving any thing of mine on that computer. Nada. Plus they had to have ordered me a new one, on their credit card, before I handed my old one over.

Mike Landi
July 29th, 2006, 09:33 PM
they had to have ordered me a new one, on their credit card, before I handed my old one over.

Did you get to pick out the computer?

Judy G. Russell
July 29th, 2006, 10:58 PM
Did you get to pick out the computer?Right down to the installed software. I "gave" them my IBM Thinkpad T40, replaced it with an IBM Thinkpad T42. I wouldn't have done it otherwise.

Mike Landi
July 31st, 2006, 04:30 PM
Goooood girl! <g>

Judy G. Russell
July 31st, 2006, 04:40 PM
Goooood girl! <g>Seriously, the whole thing annoyed me enormously. I don't mind using my own equipment for work, but being told I was expected to loan my personal laptop to a ... shall we politely say technologically impaired? ... co-worker was really annoying. And the boss was really surprised when I said no. That's when he informed me I would be selling my computer to the company. Geez!!! But it all worked out okay. They got a properly equipped laptop to the co-worker in time for him to use (and break) it, and I got a new laptop.

Mike Landi
July 31st, 2006, 04:53 PM
he boss was really surprised when I said no. That's when he informed me I would be selling my computer to the company. Geez!!! But it all worked out okay. They got a properly equipped laptop to the co-worker in time for him to use (and break) it, and I got a new laptop.

That's ballsy. I hope the new computer was an improvement in every way and not a PITA to get configured properly.

Judy G. Russell
July 31st, 2006, 09:49 PM
That's ballsy.Yeah, well I was using somewhat less repeatable words when I picked my jaw up off the floor...

I hope the new computer was an improvement in every way and not a PITA to get configured properly.Not all that much of an improvement, but it didn't have to be: my "old" notebook was almost new then and all I really wanted was to have it replaced (I ended up with a T42 to replace the T40). And once they realized I was dead serious that I was not handing over my property without it, they did go along gracefully.

Mike Landi
August 1st, 2006, 04:10 PM
Yeah, well I was using somewhat less repeatable words when I picked my jaw up off the floor...

I would have started off with "What the f***?!" and gone from there!

Not all that much of an improvement, but it didn't have to be: my "old" notebook was almost new then and all I really wanted was to have it replaced (I ended up with a T42 to replace the T40). And once they realized I was dead serious that I was not handing over my property without it, they did go along gracefully.

I can't believe they would demand your personal property. I guess I should not b*tch about my boss so much.

Judy G. Russell
August 1st, 2006, 05:33 PM
I can't believe they would demand your personal property. I guess I should not b*tch about my boss so much.Boundaries are not something they have much understanding of...

Mike Landi
August 1st, 2006, 06:27 PM
That stinks.

Mike Landi
August 1st, 2006, 06:29 PM
Just a follow up.

After lowering the disk cache to 76MB and setting the memory cache to 65MB, I see no real difference.

<sigh>

I'll leave the settings here since they take up less hard disk space.

ndebord
August 1st, 2006, 06:53 PM
Just a follow up.

After lowering the disk cache to 76MB and setting the memory cache to 65MB, I see no real difference.

<sigh>

I'll leave the settings here since they take up less hard disk space.

Mike,

Don't quote me on this, but I vaguely recall a thread somewhere where some people spent some time sweating out the details on cache size. The upshot, as near as I can recall, was that over a certain size, the cache actually retards performance. The ins and outs of that argument I no longer recall.

One statement that I could not verify was that if you pointed your disk cache to a ram drive, that performance would be improved, so long as you only used a maximum of 3/4s of that ram drive for your disk cache and that is what I do on my own laptop (having enough memory to give up 10 megs to a ramdrive.)

Judy G. Russell
August 1st, 2006, 08:35 PM
Tell me about it. I have to work for theses guys...

Judy G. Russell
August 1st, 2006, 08:36 PM
After lowering the disk cache to 76MB and setting the memory cache to 65MB, I see no real difference.Hmmm... maybe all this settings business is just a ruse to keep us guessing!

Mike Landi
August 3rd, 2006, 08:07 AM
Since Firefox and Mozilla have a memory cache and a disk cache, I'll be the setting the memory cache as high as possible gives better performance than the disk cache.

Maybe...

I'll stick with this and leave things be (until I get a hair to change things again. <g>)

fhaber
August 3rd, 2006, 01:10 PM
After lowering the disk cache to 76MB and setting the memory cache to 65MB, I see no real difference.

Doesn't it give your debugger a better handle on the memory leaks?

-gdrvvf

Mike Landi
August 3rd, 2006, 09:18 PM
My little bugger has a fine handle.


Uh,,,,


Never mind. Wrong subject. <g>