> > >/ > />/ Hi all, > />/ > />/ I have a 3G AM2 quad core CPU... x86_64 centos 5.3 > />/ > />/ > />/ When I am doing backing up to my external USB drive > />/ my system becomes sluggish. Clicking on a thunderbird compose > />/ takes some time to pop up the window. Typeing doesnt keep up etc... > />/ > />/ Is there something I can change so this backup doesnt slow my system > />/ down so much? I dont see HOW it can be taking so much CPU. > />/ top at times shows 0 idle or 11% idle from a USB backup. > />/ > />/ Thanks for any suggestions. > / > Define 'backing up to my external USB drive': > > Are you: > > 1) Using dump, tar, cpio, or cp? > 2) Are you compressing the backup? With gzip or bzip? > 3) Are you using zip? > > If you are using bzip, bzip is a cpu hog. > > How much memory do you have? > > What kind of disks do you have? IDE? SATA? If SATA, is the controller > in AHCI mode or IDE mode? > I have four gig RAM, I am just doing a "rsync -a /home /mnt/external_usb/backup.XX.YY.2009" My server has RAID-1 SATA 1 TB drives (two of course for raid) and I am doing a straight rsync to an external 1TB usb connected disk. Not doing any compression at this time. The "renice" did help some mentioned earlier... Jerry