sorta sneakernetting advice

[kamper]

I recently downloaded a whole lot of wu's (about 1600) into one directory. Then I found that SetiDriver takes too long thinking in between units (costs me about 1 unit/day). So I want to remove some of the units until I can crunch some more away and then put them back. I did a search on sneakernetting but there's one thing I'm still not sure about: which folders do I copy out of the seti/ directory? Can I grab like the 1200 with the highest numbers? Then (presuming I crunch the remaining cache down to 0) can I just copy some of the folders back in without changing the numbers?

Oh, and should I stop the Driver when doing this?

Thanks 🙂

 

[Smoke]

Stashing away completed WUs with SetiDriver can be a little tricky.

If you are not careful you will overwrite completed WUs with other completed WUs that you stashed away.

When you are ready to send in your completed WUs (cached somewhere other than within SetiDriver), you should 1st shutdown SetiDriver. Then cut/paste all of the numbers folders within the SetiDriver Folder to some other location, completely emptying the Seti folder of numbered folders.

You can then paste the previously completed and stored WUs (read here: the numbered folders) into the Seti Folder. Start up SetiDriver and TRANSMIT. If you plan on returning some other "previously completed/stored" WUs to the Seti Folder upon the completion of the TRANSMIT, I would suggest you change your CACHE to ZERO and SAVE CONFIG in order to stop SetiDriver from downloading any new WUs until you are ready for it to do so.

You can manage your completed WUs in a number of different ways but just remember that a "numbered folder" will overwrite and replace any other "like numbered folder".

If you were using SetiQueue, you would not have to be concerned about "numbered folders" .... but then that is another story. 😛 😀

lol

Oh, yes you asked about how to tell which numbered folders contained "completed" or "crunched" WUs from those numbered folders containing "non-crunched" WUs. Here is a little trick.

Do a SEARCH of your SetiDriver Folder (whatever you named it) for: " result_header.sah" files . The "numbered folders" containing such files are your "crunched" WUs. 😉

 

[kamper]

Thanks Smoke,

ok, so basically I can move any directories around, and as long as I don't overwrite any directories it's not too big of a deal what number the directories have?

I don't have a big stash of crunched units, I have a big stash of uncrunched ones.

So if I was to:
-remove folders 401-1600
-then crunch 1-400, leaving 0 units in the seti/directory
-then copy 401-800 back in with the Driver (leaving the rest until later)

would the Driver know to pick up from folder 401 or would it get confused? I guess the only concern I have is the actual names of the directories.

Thanks

 

[Smoke]

SetiDriver has its own built-in routine for numbering those folders. Even though you might be able to mix some numbered folders in there that "appear" to have different "numbered labels", the safest thing would be to handle each batch separately.

For example, name some folders: "Stash 1", "Stash 2", "Stash 3", etc.

Anything that will help you keep up with what's what. 😉

 

[kamper]

Hmm, my question still remains though: what will the Driver do if it finds itself with folders named "401" - "800" and no others?
I ask because I already have folders named that high. I just want to know if I will have to go through and change each folder name so that it is 400 less.
I guess I can just answer my own question by trying it out though.

 

[Wiz]

My guess is that if you have SetiDriver set for 400 units and you put folders named 401 - 800 in there it will leave them alone. It won't crunch them unles they are named 1- 400.

 

[Smoke]

I seem to remember messing around with this long ago and I believe SetiDriver will RENAME them. That's the built-in numbering scheme I mentioned earlier. Thus my advice to treat each batch by themselves and do not mix them together.

We could try an experiment to see. I'm betting SetiDriver will rename Folders "4xx - 8xx" to "1 - xxx". 🙂 This would happen when SetiDriver is restarted. OK, whose going to do the test? 😛 😀

 

[kamper]

Edit: I'm replying to Wiz here, I hadn't seen Smoke's post yet:

That kinda makes sense,
From what I see it starts crunching at the highest number. I just removed 401-1600 and after restarting the driver the %crunched went back to 0 (I had killed it part way through a wu). So maybe if I set it for 800 units it'll fill in the bottom?
If anyone cares I can report on my findings about 400 work units from now, kinda trivial though

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

I didn't read the entire thread, but make sure you backup your files from time to time when you do this

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: AgaBooga
I didn't read the entire thread, but make sure you backup your files from time to time when you do this

Yeah 🙂 the first thing I did was backup the whole big directory

 

[Spacehead]

Originally posted by: Smoke
I seem to remember messing around with this long ago and I believe SetiDriver will RENAME them. That's the built-in numbering scheme I mentioned earlier.

I believe you are correct. That's probably why in Kamper's case it was taking so long between WU's, having to renumber at least a few of the 1600 WU folders, especially if you lowered the cache size afterward.

1600 WU's, expecting a long server outage? 😕

 

[Smoke]

I'd like to make a slight correction to my "tip" on finding Crunched WUs. 😱

The difference between "Crunched" and "Un-Crunched" WUs:

"Un-Crunched WUs" will have a file named: "result_header.sah

"Crunched WUs" will have a file named: "result.sah"

🙂

 

[kamper]

I believe you are correct. That's probably why in Kamper's case it was taking so long between WU's, having to renumber at least a few of the 1600 WU folders, especially if you lowered the cache size afterward.

It wasn't renumbering at that point, all the folders were nicely in order as the Driver downloaded them. I'm actually still a little confused as to why the driver was running so hard in between. If it was i/o bound I would understand as it might have to search a large number of folders to make sure that people like me haven't messed things up 🙂 but it runs at cpu 50% (ht p4) while the other wu runs the other 50%.

1600 WU's, expecting a long server outage? 😕

I have my reasons 😉

 

[Coolkid]

Ok, just tested it, it will rename any higher numbered folders eg. 4xx - 8xx, to 1 - xxx as smoke said 🙂
So you should be able to copy out all the wu's you dont want to process to another directory, process the remainder and transmit them, set your cache to 0, and copy back some more unprocessed wu's.
You WILL have to exit setidriver before moving around the wu's.

 

[Smoke]

Originally posted by: Coolkid
Ok, just tested it, it will rename any higher numbered folders eg. 4xx - 8xx, to 1 - xxx as smoke said 🙂

With that I will go to bed with a smile on my face. 😀

See you all tomorrow. 😉

 

[kamper]

Thanks guys, nice not to be scared of the Driver so much anymore 🙂
Another thing to add:
I could never figure out how the Driver could remember how many units it was supposed to cache. After cutting the desired size down to something smaller than what was actually there I noticed that there was a "stop_after_send.txt" file in the higher directories like a kinda flag. Seems like a very brutish way to remember how many are supposed to be there, but oh well.
Also, how does the Driver remember how many processes it's supposed to be running? The only indication I can see is the "-cpu" item in the "Seti Driver.cfg" file but mine always reads "-cpu 0" when I'm running 2 processes.

 

[Coolkid]

Originally posted by: kamper

Also, how does the Driver remember how many processes it's supposed to be running? The only indication I can see is the "-cpu" item in the "Seti Driver.cfg" file but mine always reads "-cpu 0" when I'm running 2 processes.

Im pretty sure this is how it works:
If there is no -cpu line in the .cfg or its set to -cpu 0, it will run the same number of processes as there are processors, otherwise it will start the same number of processes as is set in the -cpu line (eg. -cpu 1 for 1 process, -cpu 3 for 3 processes) 🙂