[rhelv6-list] RHEL6.2 XFS brutal performence with lots of files

[daryl herzmann <akrherz iastate edu>]

Hi,

I've been noticing lots of annoying problems with XFS performance with 
RHEL6.2 on 64bit.  I typically have 20-30 TB file systems with data 
structured in directories based on day of year, product type, for example,

   /data/2012/06/05/product/blah.gif

Doing operations like tar or rm over these directories bring the system to 
a grinding halt.  Load average goes vertical and eventually the power 
button needs to be pressed in many cases :( A hack workaround is to break 
apart the task into smaller chunks and let the system breath in between 
operations...

Anyway, I read Ric Wheeler's "Billion Files" with great interest

http://www.redhat.com/summit/2011/presentations/summit/decoding_the_code/thursday/wheeler_t_0310_billion_files_2011.pdf

It appears there are 'known issues' with XFS and RHEL6.1.  It does not 
appear these issues were addressed in RHEL 6.2?

Does anybody know if these issues were addressed in the upcoming RHEL 6.3? 
My impression is that upstream fixes for this only recently (last 6 
months?) appeared in the mainline kernel.

Perhaps I am missing some tuning that could be done to help with this?

thanks,
  daryl