Unexpected timing results with file I/O

[Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch]

On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 21:58:46 +0000, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

> On Mon, 04 Feb 2008 17:08:02 +0000, Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch wrote:
> 
>>> Surprisingly, Method 2 is a smidgen faster, by about half a second over
>>> 500,000 open-write-close cycles. It's not much faster, but it's
>>> consistent, over many tests, changing many of the parameters (e.g. the
>>> number of files, the number of runs per timeit test, etc.).
>>> 
>>> I'm using Linux and Python 2.5.
>>> 
>>> So, what's going on? Can anyone explain why the code which does more
>>> work takes less time?
>> 
>> Can't confirm this (Linux, Python 2.5):
>> 
>> Method 1: 15.380897998809814
>> Method 2: 18.085366010665894
> 
> Hmmm... does your system use software RAID? Mine does. I wonder if that's 
> a relevant factor?

No, test ran on a plain reiserfs partition.

Ciao,
	Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch