on 7-3-2009 5:30 AM Jerry Geis spake the following: > 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. Typing doesn't keep up etc... > > Is there something I can change so this backup doesn't slow my system > down so much? I don't 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. > > Jerry USB I believe is not a DMA based port, so the processor has to do a lot of work, especially at higher speeds. Rsync can also be a resource hog, as it keeps most of the hash tables in memory it uses to compare files with. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: signature.asc Type: application/pgp-signature Size: 258 bytes Desc: OpenPGP digital signature URL: <http://lists.centos.org/pipermail/centos/attachments/20090714/3a73819e/attachment-0005.sig>