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Disk fragmentation

MawfTech

Why does Sophos AU cause so much fragmentation?

Each minor update downloads but a few KB however every time there's something to do, the entire SAV package is copied (that's > 70Mb's), the new IDE is then integrated and then this entire package is copied back again. This huge > 140MB copy which occurs several times a day is destroying small disk partitions causing machines to grind to a halt during the update cycle.

I'm pretty sure we've all experienced this slowdown and it's time to start making Sophos aware of this so we get a change. It makes no sense at all to copy the entire installation folder each time there's an update. It makes no sense to copy it again once the IDE's added. The process should happen in-place i.e.. checksum the install folder and integrate the update directly. Don't copy the folder. This way, we dramatically reduce fragmentation and speed up the whole update process.

I've got users with typically < 60% disk usage so 'ideal' and plenty of RAM. Give them 3 weeks and the machine always says 'you should defragment this volume' and it's always because the Sophos updates. Anyone else out there have users groaning every five minutes that they can't look at the screen at the moment 'cause Sophos is updating. Now you know why!

Matt

:1720


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    Hi Christian,

    Here's an easy way to see this in action. Look carefully next time you get an update at the c:\program files\sophos\autoupdate\cache folder. You need to do this when there's actually an update going to happen. You'll see a tempsavxp folder get created (if it doesn't already exist). You can then see lots of disk activity and you'll see this folder grow in size to match the original SavXP folder. Since both folder exist and are the same size, this is a 'copy' and not a 'move' process so now we have duplication of the install folder. The new downloads are then integrated into the tempsavxp folder and then checksummed. Assuming all is good, the SavXP folder is emptied and the tempSavXP copied back to SavXP (I actually think this process may use the 'move' function rather than copy but haven't proved that completely yet). Be carefull not to confuse the autoupdate cache with the Sophos installation folder. Once the cache update is complete, the installation will integrate into the sophos folder correctly only updating a few files there. It's the cache folder that's causing the fragmentation issues.

    The duplication of all these files causes windows to gradually fragment over time and since this is a significant chunk being duplicated several times a day, it doesn't take very long before fragmentation starts to slow down disk access rates. This isn't so noticeable on Vista/7 because they have weekly timed tasks to defragment in the background and it wasn't such a noticeable problem when SAV was only 30mb's or less. With the gain in package size, this is becoming a real headache. I guess if you've all got superfast high-spec'd machines it's not going to worry you much but going back to the real world and especially now when the economic climate is not good for upgrading and unecessary impact on performance is being watched very closely.

    Needs a revamp if you ask me.....

    Matt

    :1742
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  • 0

    Hi Christian,

    Here's an easy way to see this in action. Look carefully next time you get an update at the c:\program files\sophos\autoupdate\cache folder. You need to do this when there's actually an update going to happen. You'll see a tempsavxp folder get created (if it doesn't already exist). You can then see lots of disk activity and you'll see this folder grow in size to match the original SavXP folder. Since both folder exist and are the same size, this is a 'copy' and not a 'move' process so now we have duplication of the install folder. The new downloads are then integrated into the tempsavxp folder and then checksummed. Assuming all is good, the SavXP folder is emptied and the tempSavXP copied back to SavXP (I actually think this process may use the 'move' function rather than copy but haven't proved that completely yet). Be carefull not to confuse the autoupdate cache with the Sophos installation folder. Once the cache update is complete, the installation will integrate into the sophos folder correctly only updating a few files there. It's the cache folder that's causing the fragmentation issues.

    The duplication of all these files causes windows to gradually fragment over time and since this is a significant chunk being duplicated several times a day, it doesn't take very long before fragmentation starts to slow down disk access rates. This isn't so noticeable on Vista/7 because they have weekly timed tasks to defragment in the background and it wasn't such a noticeable problem when SAV was only 30mb's or less. With the gain in package size, this is becoming a real headache. I guess if you've all got superfast high-spec'd machines it's not going to worry you much but going back to the real world and especially now when the economic climate is not good for upgrading and unecessary impact on performance is being watched very closely.

    Needs a revamp if you ask me.....

    Matt

    :1742
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