Re: Rm performance issue

[Jim Meyering]

"Ken Naim" <address@hidden> wrote:
> I am removing 300gb of data spread across 130 files within a single
> directory and the process take just over 2 hours. In my past experiences
> removing a small number of large files was very quick, almost instantaneous.
> I am running red hat Linux on ibm p series hardware against a san with sata
> and fiber drives. I see this issue on both the sata and fiber side although
> the rm process is slightly faster on fiber.
>
> Uname -a : Linux hostname 2.6.9-55.EL #1 SMP Fri Apr 20 16:33:09 EDT 2007
> ppc64 ppc64 ppc64 GNU/Linux
>
> Commands : cd /path/directory/subdirectory
>
>                     Rm -f *

Thanks for the report.
In general, it's good to include the version of the tool
in question (rm --version), but here, it probably makes no
difference since rm is almost certainly not at fault.
A performance problem like this is more likely to be a function of
your kernel and the file system type than of the rm command.

What type of file system are you using?
Are you using LVM?
Have you checked dmesg and the syslog for indications of hardware failure?