From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 11 23:03:20 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D6D75106566C for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:03:20 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from djackson452@gmail.com) Received: from mail-px0-f200.google.com (mail-px0-f200.google.com [209.85.216.200]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A852F8FC0C for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:03:20 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pxi38 with SMTP id 38so158081pxi.27 for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:03:20 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:received:received:message-id:date:from :user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references:in-reply-to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; bh=k/7IgVn+bpb8n6Y5G3X+n95LyP/ZEz0hvW2w8qDhfTI=; b=kTeaQbdIeR1W0Wz2YhPdx2b0A+46jGiMosy3bHx98NcG2DpURpbrH5iQs6hhWTz4TI NH64XT6LyqlSoZd/QeqDAalxUeUoL5pl0mqRoRO2o6M+XV1e4ukRFA6UUvIJShz8YtM1 elBkmLiI3A3Pcuvgr1CzUzdxna0VWaPr5cLXQ= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=message-id:date:from:user-agent:mime-version:to:subject:references :in-reply-to:content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=ukfW1Tl8NPr23ubqOWJ5MmoVHau78R1piY/AX/ECTi5gLnePDoxAkmQL39c+vvNqOC zAmmO9H9+gdOQgY72wyDO0I5MH8rOy/HeQc/De6IUc/YV0yuX1gXs3qMBMKIIi7yoLbx 9hon+yb6RHorOhBmuwNf3IRijDvAhLN/wV8/g= Received: by 10.142.9.10 with SMTP id 10mr1806262wfi.177.1268348600184; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:03:20 -0800 (PST) Received: from [192.168.1.103] (pool-96-254-203-152.tampfl.fios.verizon.net [96.254.203.152]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id 23sm159775yxe.20.2010.03.11.15.03.18 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=RC4-MD5); Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:03:19 -0800 (PST) Message-ID: <4B997730.8070009@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:05:20 -0500 From: David Jackson User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (Windows/20090605) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org References: <4B952B38.70308@gmail.com> In-Reply-To: <4B952B38.70308@gmail.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: Re: Severe instabilities and system lockups X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:03:21 -0000 David Jackson wrote: > I am still having severe problems with severe system instabilities > with FreeBSD and have had these problrms in 7.1 and 8.0. The system > randomly locks up, it appears applications lock up when they access > the USb disk. Also, when accessing the USB disk, the entire system > lockup often for minutes. Performance with accessing USB disks is > horrendous,. it took 7 hours to copy a directory that was 200 MB. Any > program that accesses the USB disk tend to freeze for minutes, and > often the entire system becomes unresponsive for minutes. Overall > FreeBSD here is characterized by severe instabilities, ive had better > performance from Windows 98 systems. The fact that the entire system > freezes up, this should not happen, a well designed system will not > lock up the entire OS when accessing disk. > > Are there any diagnostic tools uch as getting a log of tranmissions on > USB and probe it, ,or finmd out what code it is lockilng up on ?Has > anyone else seen these problems with USB disks? Thank you for the reply to my concerns. I have been reading through them carefully. I seem to have also discovered that the lockup problems are not entirely due to USB issues. Many of them were being caused by an apparent problem with the swap system. I have two swaps, a file backed swap and a partition swap on the same disk. Apparently when having two swaps on the disk there are severe performance problems. FreeBSD needs to fix whatever is causing this thrashing problem. So far the lockups have seem to become much less severe since i have disabled the file based swap file. I may disable the partition swap but i do not know if it is possible to have the system boot with a file based swap only. Perhaps i can disable the partition swap after it boots. I am trying to copy a directory on the USB drive however and it does seem to be rather slow still. It started at 5:45 and is still going. I will see how long it takes. Again thanks for the help with these issues