compressed news on a 7300 with 512K RAM

[Karl Swartz]

In article <44 at docwrk.UUCP> srh at docwrk.UUCP (Steven R. Houser) writes:
>I just started running compressed news on my 7300, which has only 512K ...

>My question: will overworking the disk like this cause it to die an early 
>death?  Or isn't it anything to worry about?  Would more RAM help the problem?  

I don't know for sure about the disk, but I can't imagine that thrashing
the swap area is good for it.  I *do* know that more RAM will help the
problem.  Even another 512K, up to 1MB on the machine, will make compress
much less painful to use.

Until you can get more memory, try using the -b12 option on compress.  It
will then use smaller tables and thus less memory.  Offhand I can't recall
if it's enough less to keep from thrashing in 512K, but it should be a lot
better.  Make sure your newsfeed generates 12 bit compress batches too.

-- 
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