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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Write to Disk at Most.. (RESOLVED) |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 9
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WilhelmGGW
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Nov 12, 2005 Post Count: 52 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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In BOINC Manager
----------------------------------------Under tab "Disk and Memory Usage" Field: Write to disk at most every __ seconds 1) Does this regulate how often the agent will save its work to disk, while it's crunching away on a work unit? That is, the normal saves it does while processing so it can recover more work done (i.e., lose less), if the work unit is aborted before it's finished? Thus, setting this interval to a higher number will produce fewer, less frequent, writes/saves to disk? 2) Is there a maximum number for this setting? I want to run WCG on a new computer I got that has a solid state drive. But I'm concerned about the limited writes-per-sector capabilities of this kind of storage medium. If this setting does what I think it might, I could well dial it up from the default 60 to something like 900 seconds [15 minutes], to save wear on the drive. [Edit 1 times, last edit by WilhelmGGW at Mar 25, 2009 3:37:16 PM] |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Part of your question was already answered in the Atom 270 thread you posted: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/printpost?post=217950
----------------------------------------Write at most is a restriction rather than a forcing. It stops too frequent writing of checkpoints. E.g. if a science is writing one every 59 seconds, it is not allowed to do so first time with the default 60 second restriction, so it will write one next chance after 60 seconds. If a science checkpoints every 15 minutes and you set the value at 960 seconds, it will write a checkpoint about 15 minutes after the previous blocked write i.e at 30 minutes intervals. Personally I use mostly 10 minutes, sometimes max as I'm using "Leave Application in Memory when pre-empted". If that option is off and BOINC is paused or benchmarking, the science unloads and looses the time since last checkpoint.
WCG
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Sekerob describes how the feature should work.
Unfortunately, BOINC is incapable of enforcing this. Well-behaved applications will respect the setting fully, but if you are concerned about your hardware, you should check that the limit isn't being ignored. |
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WilhelmGGW
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Nov 12, 2005 Post Count: 52 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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..if you are concerned about your hardware, you should check that the limit isn't being ignored. And, how would I do this? Thanks for all your help. You folks are the best! I appreciate so much your giving the right information for me to satisfy myself with the setup and fully contribute -- even in this one small way -- to the WCG. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
In Task Manager, add the I/O Read Bytes and I/O Write Bytes columns.
I know that none of the WCG applications write excessively, but some projects may have some additional disk activity now and then. |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Unfortunately, BOINC is incapable of enforcing this. WilhelmGGW, On this note, it's the science application asking BOINC at suitable progress points where intermediate result size is small; "may I write?". At some projects outside WCG they've not included that request for checkpoint writing and just do. The worst I've seen doing it every 30 seconds and another does it every few minutes, but the checkpoint file is very big, so lots of time lost on writing to slow HD media.
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
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WilhelmGGW
Advanced Cruncher Joined: Nov 12, 2005 Post Count: 52 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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In Task Manager, add the I/O Read Bytes and I/O Write Bytes columns. And how do I do this? I have looked all over for how to add columns, but I can't find it. You the guru friends of the forum know so much about all these things! This lowly contributor knows so little. |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
In the Processes tab, click View->Select Columns...
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petehardy
Senior Cruncher USA Joined: May 4, 2007 Post Count: 318 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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WilhelmGGW,
----------------------------------------In Windows Task Manager - Select the Processes tab - in the view menu click Select columns.. Pete  "Patience is a virtue", I can't wait to learn it! |
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