[CentOS] Deleting Large Files

Mon Mar 2 23:36:32 UTC 2009
Kevin Krieser <k_krieser at sbcglobal.net>

On Mar 2, 2009, at 2:34 AM, Kay Diederichs wrote:

> Joseph L. Casale schrieb:
>> I have an issue with a busy CentOS server exporting iSCSI and NFS/ 
>> SMB shares.
>> Some of the files are very large, and when they get deleted IO  
>> climbs to an
>> unacceptable rate. Is there a way to purge a file with little to no  
>> IO
>> overhead on ext3?
>>
>> Thanks!
>> jlc
>
> Have you tried to delete locally, instead of over NFS?
>
> Maybe by deleting over SMB from a Windows machine, the file is not
> deleted but rather moved to a "Trash" folder on a different disk  
> (which
> would explain the I/O)? (Same could happen with a Unix desktop, like  
> KDE)
>
> Have you tried the "unlink" command instead of "rm" ?
>
> Kay


I've seen length delete times too when deleting a 30+ GB file on an  
ext3 filesystem, locally.  I don't think that Windows (XP at least)  
will move remote files to a "trash" folder, only local files.  Though  
there is no telling what it might do if you have some 3rd party  
application installed that may provide an "undelete" functionality.

I haven't researched it enough to check I/O stats.