We analyzed the user-level file access patterns and caching behavior of the Sprite distributed file system. The first part of our analysis repeated a study done in 1985 of the: BSD UNIX file system. We found that file throughput has increased by a factor of 20 to an average of 8 Kbytes per second per active user over 10-minute intervals, and that the use of process migration for load sharing increased burst rates by another factor of six. Also, many more very large (multi-megabyte) files are in use today than in 1985. The second part of our analysis measured the behavior of Sprite's main-memory file caches. Client-level caches average about 7 Mbytes in size (about one-quarter to one-third of main memory) and filter out about 50% of the traffic between clients and servers. 35% of the remaining server traffic is caused by paging, even on workstations with large memories. We found that client cache consistency is needed to prevent stale data errors, but that it is not invoked often enough to degrade overall system performance.

Article Free Access Share on A trace-driven analysis of the UNIX 4.2 BSD file system Authors: John K. Ousterhout Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile , Hervé Da Costa Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile , David Harrison Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile , John A. Kunze Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile , Mike Kupfer Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile , James G. Thompson Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CA Computer Science Division, Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, CAView Profile Authors Info & Claims SOSP '85: Proceedings of the tenth ACM symposium on Operating systems principlesDecember 1985 Pages 15–24https://doi.org/10.1145/323647.323631Published:01 December 1985Publication History 390citation1,640DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations390Total Downloads1,640Last 12 Months127Last 6 weeks18 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF