I rather suspect its the difference in strategies for our file systems. OpenBSD uses ffs and I've enabled soft updates as well (normal and common). The filesystem is normally in sync mode and IIRC soft updates relaxes that somewhat for the data while continuing to be strict about meta-data. Again, IIRC Linux's ext2/3 operates in async mode by default which is faster but is less able to handle interruptions.

$ perl perrin-bench3.pl
Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of berkeley write, file print, file sy
+swrite, file write...
berkeley write: 96 wallclock secs (25.02 usr + 21.67 sys = 46.69 CPU) 
+@  0.21/s (n=10)
file print: 54 wallclock secs (23.83 usr + 12.98 sys = 36.81 CPU) @  0
+.27/s (n=10)
file syswrite: 44 wallclock secs (23.17 usr + 11.72 sys = 34.89 CPU) @
+  0.29/s (n=10)
file write: 54 wallclock secs (23.65 usr + 12.34 sys = 35.99 CPU) @  0
+.28/s (n=10)
               s/iter berkeley write     file print     file write fil
+e syswrite
berkeley write   4.67             --           -21%           -23%    
+      -25%
file print       3.68            27%             --            -2%    
+       -5%
file write       3.60            30%             2%             --    
+       -3%
file syswrite    3.49            34%             6%             3%    
+        --
Benchmark: timing 10 iterations of berkeley read, file read, file slur
+p, file sysread...
berkeley read: 170 wallclock secs (10.95 usr +  7.75 sys = 18.70 CPU) 
+@  0.53/s (n=10)
file read: 156 wallclock secs ( 7.68 usr +  6.01 sys = 13.69 CPU) @  0
+.73/s (n=10)
file slurp: 173 wallclock secs (11.71 usr +  6.62 sys = 18.33 CPU) @  
+0.55/s (n=10)
file sysread: 194 wallclock secs ( 6.80 usr +  5.45 sys = 12.25 CPU) @
+  0.82/s (n=10)
              s/iter berkeley read    file slurp     file read  file s
+ysread
berkeley read   1.87            --           -2%          -27%        
+  -34%
file slurp      1.83            2%            --          -25%        
+  -33%
file read       1.37           37%           34%            --        
+  -11%
file sysread    1.23           53%           50%           12%        
+    --


--- perrin-bench2.pl    Tue Mar 18 12:00:06 2003
+++ perrin-bench3.pl    Tue Mar 18 14:00:21 2003
@@ -35,6 +35,34 @@
   return $value;
 }

+sub slurp_file {
+  my $key = shift;
+  my $file = "$file_dir/$key";
+  local $/;
+  open(FH, '<', $file) or die $!;
+  my $value = <FH>;
+  close FH;
+  return $value;
+}
+
+sub sysread_file {
+  my $key = shift;
+  my $file = "$file_dir/$key";
+  my $value;
+  open(FH, '<', $file) or die $!;
+  sysread FH, $value, (stat FH)[7];
+  close FH;
+  return $value;
+}
+
+sub print_file {
+  my ($key, $value) = @_;
+  my $file = "$file_dir/$key";
+  open(FH, '>', $file) or die $!;
+  print FH $value;
+  close FH;
+}
+
 sub write_file {
   my ($key, $value) = @_;
   my $file = "$file_dir/$key";
@@ -43,13 +71,30 @@
   close FH;
 }

+sub syswrite_file {
+  my ($key, $value) = @_;
+  my $file = "$file_dir/$key";
+  open(FH, '>', $file) or die $!;
+  print FH $value;
+  close FH;
+}
+
 cmpthese(10, {
     'file write' => sub {
       for (0..1000) {
        write_file($_, $_ x 8000);
       }
     },
-
+    'file print' => sub {
+      for (0..1000) {
+       print_file($_, $_ x 8000);
+      }
+    },
+    'file syswrite' => sub {
+      for (0..1000) {
+       syswrite_file($_, $_ x 8000);
+      }
+    },
     'berkeley write' => sub {
       for (0..1000) {
        $db_obj->db_put($_, $_ x 8000);
@@ -62,6 +107,18 @@
       my $test;
       for (0..1000) {
        $test = read_file($_);
+      }
+    },
+    'file slurp' => sub {
+      my $test;
+      for (0..1000) {
+       $test = slurp_file($_);
+      }
+    },
+    'file sysread' => sub {
+      my $test;
+      for (0..1000) {
+       $test = sysread_file($_);
       }
     },
     'berkeley read' => sub {
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