On Wed, Mar 08, 2006 at 10:20:08PM -0500, Greg Stark wrote: > > For that to be of any use, wouldn't you need to use only as many tapes > > as spindles/2? Otherwise you're still trying to read and write from the > > same set of drives, which means you're probably doing a lot of seeking. > > Or do the tape algorithms re-write data as they read it? > > Well, spindles-1. I was thinking as many tapes as you have spindles *in > total*, > ie, including the output tape. You only have one output tape for each n-way > merge though.
Well, the reality remains though; most folks are unlikely to setup enough dedicated temp areas so that we can do one tape per disk, so it would be really good to have a sort method that didn't rely on that. -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant [EMAIL PROTECTED] Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461 ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 6: explain analyze is your friend
