Package: boinc-client Version: 6.12.33+dfsg-1 Severity: important Boinc is (too) disk intensive.
Hello Boinc users and maintainers, I was shocked to see that boinc is a writing a lot on disk. Several Gigabytes in a few hours seems usual ! This is simply too much. As the default installation path is /var/lib/boinc-client this happens to be on /dev/sda in my case (and probably for most). This will just kill my SSD at the end. But even by manually relocating it to a HDD, I think this is too much disk usage. So I would suggest: 1. Short time countermeasure - boinc users: check with 'iostat' you disk usage. Especially if you have SSD. Move boinc somewhere else if your SSD suffers. - boinc maintainer: -- better to put a warning somewhere before user activates boinc "Warning: important disk writing can occur (several Gb/hr disk) => avoid installing on SSD" -- install by default in /home/boinc (create a specific user). This will increase the chances to land on a HDD and not on a SDD. 2. Best Investigate why the hell does boinc need to write so much. As writing >> reading amount, I guess it is just to backup intermediate results that are not needed for further calculations. Notes: - 'Task checkpoint to disk at most every' initially set to 60s. I tried 1000s but saw no change. In both cases several Mb are written before any 60s interval. - I am not sure if this is dependant of the tasks or not. - from my side I will deinstall boinc :-( I do hope above will prevent others from beeing suprised of premature SSD failure (unfortunately SSD are silents & quick so I didn't notice anything before playing with iostat). Thanks for the long reading. Franck -- Package-specific info: -- Contents of /etc/default/boinc-client: # This file is /etc/default/boinc-client, it is a configuration file for the # /etc/init.d/boinc-client init script. # Set this to 1 to enable and to 0 to disable the init script. ENABLED="1" # Set this to 1 to enable advanced scheduling of the BOINC core client and # all its sub-processes (reduces the impact of BOINC on the system's # performance). SCHEDULE="1" # The BOINC core client will be started with the permissions of this user. BOINC_USER="boinc" # This is the data directory of the BOINC core client. BOINC_DIR="/var/lib/boinc-client" # This is the location of the BOINC core client, that the init script uses. # If you do not want to use the client program provided by the boinc-client # package, you can specify here an alternative client program. #BOINC_CLIENT="/usr/local/bin/boinc" BOINC_CLIENT="/usr/bin/boinc" # Here you can specify additional options to pass to the BOINC core client. # Type 'boinc --help' or 'man boinc' for a full summary of allowed options. #BOINC_OPTS="--allow_remote_gui_rpc" BOINC_OPTS="" -- System Information: Debian Release: wheezy/sid APT prefers unstable APT policy: (500, 'unstable') Architecture: amd64 (x86_64) Kernel: Linux 3.0.0-1-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores) Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages boinc-client depends on: ii adduser 3.113 add and remove users and groups ii ca-certificates 20110502 Common CA certificates ii debconf [debconf-2.0] 1.5.41 Debian configuration management sy ii libc6 2.13-11 Embedded GNU C Library: Shared lib ii libcurl3 7.21.6-3 Multi-protocol file transfer libra ii libgcc1 1:4.6.1-5 GCC support library ii libssl1.0.0 1.0.0d-3 SSL shared libraries ii libstdc++6 4.6.1-5 GNU Standard C++ Library v3 ii python 2.6.7-2 interactive high-level object-orie ii zlib1g 1:1.2.3.4.dfsg-3 compression library - runtime Versions of packages boinc-client recommends: ii ia32-libs 20110609 ia32 shared libraries for use on a Versions of packages boinc-client suggests: pn boinc-app-seti <none> (no description available) ii boinc-manager 6.12.33+dfsg-1 GUI to control and monitor the BOI ii x11-xserver-utils 7.6+3 X server utilities -- Configuration Files: /etc/boinc-client/global_prefs_override.xml changed: <global_preferences> <run_on_batteries>0</run_on_batteries> <run_if_user_active>1</run_if_user_active> <run_gpu_if_user_active>0</run_gpu_if_user_active> <idle_time_to_run>3.000000</idle_time_to_run> <suspend_cpu_usage>55.000000</suspend_cpu_usage> <start_hour>0.000000</start_hour> <end_hour>0.000000</end_hour> <net_start_hour>0.000000</net_start_hour> <net_end_hour>0.000000</net_end_hour> <leave_apps_in_memory>0</leave_apps_in_memory> <confirm_before_connecting>0</confirm_before_connecting> <hangup_if_dialed>0</hangup_if_dialed> <dont_verify_images>0</dont_verify_images> <work_buf_min_days>0.050000</work_buf_min_days> <work_buf_additional_days>0.400000</work_buf_additional_days> <max_ncpus_pct>100.000000</max_ncpus_pct> <cpu_scheduling_period_minutes>120.000000</cpu_scheduling_period_minutes> <disk_interval>1000.000000</disk_interval> <disk_max_used_gb>5.500000</disk_max_used_gb> <disk_max_used_pct>50.000000</disk_max_used_pct> <disk_min_free_gb>2.000000</disk_min_free_gb> <vm_max_used_pct>50.000000</vm_max_used_pct> <ram_max_used_busy_pct>25.000000</ram_max_used_busy_pct> <ram_max_used_idle_pct>50.000000</ram_max_used_idle_pct> <max_bytes_sec_up>0.000000</max_bytes_sec_up> <max_bytes_sec_down>0.000000</max_bytes_sec_down> <cpu_usage_limit>100.000000</cpu_usage_limit> <daily_xfer_limit_mb>0.000000</daily_xfer_limit_mb> <daily_xfer_period_days>0</daily_xfer_period_days> </global_preferences> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". 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