The DEC OSF/1 AXP operating system does not buffer disk writes by default. This results in file update times that are much slower than usual for UNIX machines. To increase performance for write operations, you must modify the system kernel parameter "delay_wbuffers".
WARNING
Modifying or patching the system kernel is extremely risky. If a mistake is made or if an improperly configured kernel is installed, the system may crash or fail to boot. Modifications to the kernel should be performed only by a qualified system administrator.
One way to enable "delay_wbuffers" is to use the UNIX debugger utility "dbx" to patch the kernel. Using "dbx" you could enter the following commands:
dbx -k /vmunix
(dbx) assign delay_wbuffers=1
(dbx) patch delay_wbuffers=1
(dbx) q