deleteing files FAST from the HD

[Kumado]

Hi all,

I am looking for an extremely fast method to safely ( as in not screw up the allocation table or such ) delete major amounts of files from a hard drive "daily".

The project is: I have several IP based cameras, ftp images to a server. 12 cameras send images every 2 secs approx 56K in size to separate folders during cetain time periods.
I have a cron job to delete the oldest folder every day ( after 16 days ) and make a new set of working folders.
My problem is that deleteing files takes FOREVER.

Any help please?

fyi, I am going BACK to Google now. Thanks

Kuma

[spencerf]

what filesystem are you using? I noticed with ext3 it took a long time to delete a large chunk of data. But when I switched to JFS it was super fast. I would look at at JFS, XFS, and ReiserFS if you haven't already.

[Kumado]

I am sure it is the ext3. I used a "standard" suse 10 install.
boot, root, var and srv all the same and a swap.

I just did a fresh install of a machine to try out for Monday. I added a second drive and formatted it in XFS, the /srv partition. Hopefully Monday evening the tests begin!

Thanks for the post!

Kuma