Re: Efficient way to fork processes and keep a running count?

[targetsmart]

As per the scenarios you showed, IMHO, there is no need to fork a fourth child, the second child can do the read of disc4 once it is done with disc2.
As only 3 drives exist, 3 processes at a time would be sufficient, that too reusing the existing pool of processes without forking a new one is a good idea.
Forking more number of processes would increase unnecessary complexity.

[ikegami]

You are violently agreeing with the OP. He said the fourth child should be forked after one of the original three had exited, meaning at most three children exist at any given time.