From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Mar 11 23:16:36 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 AA32D1065673 for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:16:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from amvandemore@gmail.com) Received: from mail-pw0-f54.google.com (mail-pw0-f54.google.com [209.85.160.54]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7E1898FC19 for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 23:16:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: by pwj4 with SMTP id 4so346463pwj.13 for ; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:16:35 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:cc:content-type; bh=f6f0LPVbsm00yJH1XRcRW7l7dqPEPGrCiY7w1ZzTIDo=; b=blT2MEZr9yFgyaDc4Ydo/UBVJgMEmy5ZvO7hAj85OyrpuoGl1r2n0/1MtOuLxjVHpq poqNXfOokl38WrXwJLum5bkBVwMmKmLKhdny6Cg4qd3v9MOhC816N3YBwHk9lRMP98qk 0gOvfUNa2f0xn/nya0oZB7/ZR8qaauQSjA8HU= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :cc:content-type; b=A/ZJCkSY6zhfs4IOgqBhMk4hWLMRPdTMllnCIa9awhLAWWGk/qoUGT6UhVWGwV4PsL gAh1ZTheUGh6wb7PhYAQ2sw9cZbOVS8mF8B7VlmvPdI+uSJ+S/hGAZtrBdp0cMhvYV2I YnUG92XuWattqRYf1RwEDYTU2tfp6xYX09Wns= MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.142.60.15 with SMTP id i15mr1784946wfa.301.1268349395858; Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:16:35 -0800 (PST) In-Reply-To: <4B997730.8070009@gmail.com> References: <4B952B38.70308@gmail.com> <4B997730.8070009@gmail.com> Date: Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:16:35 -0600 Message-ID: <6201873e1003111516r6aac4555t407ea1e4522c4749@mail.gmail.com> From: Adam Vande More To: David Jackson Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 X-Content-Filtered-By: Mailman/MimeDel 2.1.5 Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org 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 23:16:36 -0000 On Thu, Mar 11, 2010 at 5:05 PM, David Jackson wrote: > 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 It's unclear how this system is being used, but if swap is being frequently accessed that's a problem your usage, not freebsd in particular. If your swap is being accessed frequently in any OS you should expect a serious performance hit. If that is the case you should investigate reducing memory usage/adding more in. -- Adam Vande More