From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Fri Mar 12 06:43:05 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC2B516A4CE for ; Fri, 12 Mar 2004 06:43:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from dev1.localdomain.net (unknown [81.208.57.5]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5B03743D1D for ; Fri, 12 Mar 2004 06:43:04 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from olgeni@uli.it) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1])i2CEh2HE080056 for ; Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:43:02 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from olgeni@uli.it) Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 15:43:02 +0100 (CET) From: Jimmy Olgeni X-X-Sender: olgeni@dev1.localdomain.net To: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.org Message-ID: <20040312153634.O80001@dev1.localdomain.net> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Subject: about the "wdrain" state X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Fri, 12 Mar 2004 14:43:05 -0000 Hi! I have a Compaq DL380 G2 server with a SmartArray 5i controller running 4.8-RELEASE. When I move a lot of data on the disk (like untarring a new ports collection or /usr/src/) the process works fine for a while, then takes a long pause, then restarts again. When it "pauses", pressing ^T shows it's in the "wdrain" state, which looks related to waiting for the disk to finish some write operations. Unfortunately, the 5i controller has a somewhat poor performance by itself so that may be the cause. Are there any kernel tunables that I could change to at least "spread" the pauses over many small intervals, rather than locking the process for a few seconds? The volume is using softupdates, I thought about changing kern.filedelay and friends but I'd like to know if there are sensibile values to put in before I fry the production server :) -- jimmy