Node async vs sync

Question

I am writing a node server that reads/deletes/adds/etc a file from the filesystem. Is there any performance advantage to reading asynchronously? I can't do anything while waiting for the file to be read. Example:

deleteStructure: function(req, res) {
  var structure = req.param('structure');
  fs.unlink(structure, function(err) {
    if (err) return res.serverError(err);
    return res.ok();
  });
}

I am also making requests to another server using http.get. Is there any performance advantage to fetching asynchronously? I can't do anything while waiting for the file to be fetched. Example:

getStructure: function(req, res) {
  var structure = urls[req.param('structure')];
  http.get(structure).then(
    function (response) {
      return res.send(response);
    },
    function (err) {
      res.serverError(err)
    }
  );
}

If there is no performance advantage to reading files asynchronously, I can just use the synchronous methods. However, I am not aware of synchronous methods for http calls, do any built in methods exist?

FYI I am using Sails.js.

Thanks!

Answer 1

I can't do anything while waiting for the file to be read.
I can't do anything while waiting for the file to be fetched.

Wrong; you can handle an unrelated HTTP request.

Whenever your code is in the middle of a synchronous operation, your server will not respond to other requests at all.

This asynchronous scalability is the biggest attraction for Node.js.