topic Re: machine load in StoreEver Tape Storage

machine load

Marcel Schepers — Thu, 26 Jun 2003 13:09:01 GMT

Hello,

When I start a backup using star and monitor the machine load using top I see something I do not understand. The load average is 1.00 while the CPU claims 97.6% idle time. I have attached a screenshot. Isn't that strange, a load of 1.00 combined with that much idle time?

For the record, I am using a HP C35480A on a linux machine (Debian, 2.4.21) using an Adaptec AVA-2904 SCSI card.

Re: machine load

Dave Dewar — Thu, 26 Jun 2003 14:48:36 GMT

Hi Marcel,

This post might be more suitable in one of the linux forums. It doesn't sound like a drive issue.

Cheers,

Dave Dewar

Re: machine load

Marcel Schepers — Thu, 26 Jun 2003 14:55:41 GMT

Hello Dave,

You're right! It is now in Linux General.

Have a nice day,
Marcel

Re: machine load

Tim D Fulford — Fri, 27 Jun 2003 10:22:43 GMT

Load average is simply the number of running or runable processes. IF you have a process that is in the "runable" state (i.e. not doing much work) then this can indeed happen.

Chances are is that the tape drive is slow in comparision to the process, thus it spends a great deal of time waiting on IO.

I have little knowledge of Linux stuff, this is a general UNIX question IMHO

Tim