RAM disk vs paging + buffer cache

[#Bill_Stewart]

In article <244 at desint.UUCP> geoff at desint.UUCP (Geoff Kuenning) writes:
>In article <240 at whuxcc.UUCP> judah at whuxcc.UUCP (Judah Greenblatt) writes:
>>generates physical I/O operations, even when the buffer-cache is empty:
>> 	- create a file >> 	- write 1 block of data >> 	- close it
>This is an unfortunate side effect of the file system reliability
>enhancements that were done for System V (III?).  This is the unfortunate
>reality of reliability--it trades off against performance.  In this case,
>.........., but most users seem >to feel the reliability is worth it.
>> -  One thought on why you might not want to let the block buffers
>>    do all the work: can you imagine what a 'sync' would
>>    cost on a system with 20,000 block buffers?
>Also, can you imagine what it would be like to crash WITHOUT sync-ing on a
>system with 20,000 block buffers?  

Is there any way to tell the system "Don't bother syncing /tmp"?  On
my systems, I let fsck rebuild /tmp anyway; I'd rather trade the
reliability of /tmp for speed and only sync for garbage collection.
-- 
# Bill Stewart, AT&T Bell Labs 2G-202, Holmdel NJ 1-201-949-0705 ihnp4!ho95c!wcs