From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG  Sun Nov  9 22:11:47 2008
Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG>
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 D01C7106567B
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Sun,  9 Nov 2008 22:11:47 +0000 (UTC)
	(envelope-from kris@FreeBSD.org)
Received: from weak.chn.comcast.net (freefall.freebsd.org
	[IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::28])
	by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A6A678FC19
	for <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>;
	Sun,  9 Nov 2008 22:11:47 +0000 (UTC)
	(envelope-from kris@FreeBSD.org)
Message-ID: <49176052.6070701@FreeBSD.org>
Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2008 14:12:34 -0800
From: Kris Kennaway <kris@FreeBSD.org>
User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.17 (Macintosh/20080914)
MIME-Version: 1.0
To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
References: <20081109202149.GA7091@ourbrains.org>	<991123400811091225t392bd3f3i531dbe348a13e5e4@mail.gmail.com>	<20081109203241.GB8395@ourbrains.org>	<28283d910811091235q70181b52nc4235aea61518cd@mail.gmail.com>	<49174EAC.2070403@FreeBSD.org>
	<20081109210219.GB8576@ourbrains.org>
In-Reply-To: <20081109210219.GB8576@ourbrains.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Subject: Re: Sluggish scheduling during a long disk copy
X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org
X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5
Precedence: list
List-Id: User questions <freebsd-questions.freebsd.org>
List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe>
List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-questions>
List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-questions@freebsd.org>
List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=help>
List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions>, 
	<mailto:freebsd-questions-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe>
X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 09 Nov 2008 22:11:47 -0000

Dan wrote:
> Kris Kennaway(kris@FreeBSD.org)@2008.11.09 12:57:16 -0800:
>>> could be an issue with ntfs-3g driver
>> Sounds like it to me.  ntfs-3g uses FUSE, which is a userland filesystem  
>> framework.  By design it will have poor I/O performance since every I/O  
>> transfer will require multiple trips into and out of the kernel.
> 
> The FS performance isn't the issue, the poor interactive performance is.

If you're thrashing your system with too many context switches or I/O 
load it is expected that performance will suffer.  You should do some 
additional investigation with the standard monitoring tools (top, 
vmstat, gstat, etc) to determine what your system is doing.

Kris