Date:         Mon, 25 Feb 2002 16:19:58 -0500
Reply-To:     Roger Lustig <rlustig@CBDCREDIT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Roger Lustig <rlustig@CBDCREDIT.COM>
Organization: Creative Business Decisions, Inc.
Subject:      Re: disk space issue using SAS
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed

Folks:


The chorus of disapproval that followed the "add another drive"
suggestion was impressive.  However:

a) that might just be the solution to the original query!  To be sure,
we have no idea how the machine in question is configured, or whether
someone's been keeping their old socks in the same partition as the
SASWORK folder, or whether a KEEP= in the first SET statement is all
that's needed, or whether excessive working files are being created/not
deleted, or whatever.

b) On small machines (typically WINTEL desktops/workstations) there *is*
a general reason for any SAS user who has lots of data to have at least
two drives, however large the first one is.  When manipulating large
files, it is much more efficient to read from one drive and write to
another than to do simultaneous reads and writes on the same drive.
Figuring out all the back-and-forth may require a little extra thought
when one's writing a multi-step program, but it pays off very quickly.

To me, a SAS workstation is a PC with lots of memory and two or more drives.

Here's a suggestion for SAS V10: allow explicit multi-volume SASWORK
spaces.  Enhance PROC SQL to allow it take advantage of such.


Roger