OT: Unix stutter

[John Esak]

> Jeff Lieberman and I had a discussion on this a few years back.
> This was also a problem in many Linux systems.  They made the cache
> very large for fast performance, but when it had to be flushed it
> would bog down.  It has probably been fixed.

I will still check it.

>
> > You're right I never mentioned the system (this time). It is a
> > SMP 2 3Ghz CPU"s with 1Gb of RAM. We run about 50 users, but at
> > night when this problem happens only about 7 or 8 and only 1 of
> > them is ever doing anything at a time. (meaning no time are two
> > or three people doing different things. Just one big filePro
> > app running with 6 - 8 users... and the backup.

And more importantly, the system is a Dell 4600... with their Perc3 raid for
the hard drives, and an Adaptec 39320 for the tape which is a Sony
jukebox... 30 tapes AIT3.

> I don't have anyone running SMP but ISTR some discussion on SMP
> problems and there was a patch - but I may be confused on this.
> Perhaps JPR has more definate information.

I have tried to run mpstat while the problem is occurring... but it doesn't
tell me much and it is hard to coordinate it at the right time.


>
> >From the command line just do this:
>
> sar -o /tmp/sar 10 10

Yes, I've used sar from yerars ago... but haven't in a while. I haven't had
anything in years and years that caused me to need it.

I'll try it.

John