############## # # 5-year old desktop machine # $ ls -lh Test.fasta -rw-r--r-- 1 aardvark aardvark 234M Jul 27 23:02 Test.fasta $ time perl -ne "print if /^>/" Test.fasta | wc -l 1572864 real 0m5.709s user 0m4.279s sys 0m1.233s $ time perl ./reader.pl | wc -l 1572864 real 4m26.494s user 4m8.936s sys 0m1.607s ############## # # server # $ ls -lh Test.fasta -rw-rw-r-- 1 aardvark aardvark 234M Jul 27 22:51 Test.fasta $ time perl -ne "print if /^>/" Test.fasta | wc -l 1572864 real 0m1.774s user 0m1.607s sys 0m0.214s $ time perl ./reader.pl | wc -l 1572864 real 1m9.258s user 1m9.012s sys 0m0.229s