[CentOS] weird XFS problem

Hello all,

I have a CentOS 5.7 machine hosting a 16 TB XFS partition used to house backups. The backups are run via rsync/rsnapshot and are large in terms of the number of files: over 10 million each.

Now the machine is not particularly powerful: it is 64-bit machine, dual core CPU, 3 GB RAM. So perhaps this is a factor in why I am having the following problem: once in awhile that XFS partition starts generating multiple I/O errors, files that had content become 0 byte, directories disappear, etc. Every time a reboot fixes that, however. So far I've looked at logs but could not find a cause of precipitating event.

Hence the question: has anyone experienced anything along those lines? What could be the cause of this?

Thanks.

Boris.