Slow USB copy

[larbac]

Hi

I have formated a few time ago, to install the latest 17.04 version. Since then, when I copy files to or from my USB flash drives, the system stays very slow and it take ages to copy the files.

The flash drives are the same I used before, and also the PC, so this has to be a software issue. The kernel is the 4.10-0.32-Generic.

How can I solve this?

Thanks

PS: While doing "watch -n1 grep -e Dirty: /proc/meminfo" I can see that the speed is about 4-5MB/s...

[GreyGeek]

Change the niceness of the process to give it a higher I/O rate or CPU time. You can do that on a process from the process table in Ksysguard by right clicking on it and choosing the option "Set Priority". Or you can do it from the CLI. Use "man nice" in a Konsole to see how.

[larbac]

Hi @GreyGeek

And what process should I do it?
I tried to found meminfo, but it's not there...

[GreyGeek]

Hi @GreyGeek

And what process should I do it?
I tried to found meminfo, but it's not there...

Generally, the main process is kdeinit5. When you open KSysguard and click the process id tab, then click on the %CPU column header to switch it to showing the processes with the highest CPU percentage at the top, you can locate the kdeinit5 process with the highest percentage and then right mouse on it and select "Set Priority". Then slide the sliders of both the CPU scheduler and the I/O scheduler to the right and click OK. Change it back to the center (normal, niceness 0) when you are done.

If you have permission trouble when copying (because your USB stick is owned by root and you are trying to copy as user), then run "kdesudo krusader" in a Konsole and use it to drag and drop.

[larbac]

Hi again

Today I tried to copy a 8GB file. It take ages... (about 20min and counting)
I checked the processes consuming CPU usage and the biggest one is on 2-3%...
From time to time I have processes saying: waiting for the HDD. It's a SSD drive. Why is it waiting for?

[GreyGeek]

Did you notice any processes that were "sleeping"?

[rwbehne1]

I am having the same exact problem on my WD MyBook external drive.

Device Start End Sectors Size Type
/dev/sdc1 2048 1953456127 1953454080 931.5G Linux filesystem

I have chowned the drive to my account, but that didn't help.
I opened a root shell and am using mc to move files. It's been moving only one 81G directory, but has only managed 18% in the last 15 hours.
I did renice kdeinit5 and other processes to make it greedy for CPU time, but it doesn't seem to make much difference.

Lots of sleeping processes:

The entire system now seems to be dragging so slow, it's just about on its knees.
The memory (16G) is pegged at 100%, but most of the time northing's happening, it just sits there doing nothing. Then, every so often it copies for half a minute, then hangs again for several more minutes.

At this rate it'll probably take me a few months to move as many files as possible to that external drive. There must be some way of making this go fast and smoothly.

[GreyGeek]

I would terminate the copying process for now and use the S.M.A.R.T features in the KPartition Manager to see if that drive is throwing errors


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[rwbehne1]

I would terminate the copying process for now and use the S.M.A.R.T features in the KPartition Manager to see if that drive is throwing errors

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I already terminated it a few hours ago. That external drive doesn't have S.M.A.R.T support, so I couldn't get a report on it, only on sda.

When KDe partition tool started, I got this:

2017-08-28 22:41:54: Using backend plugin: pmlibpartedbackendplugin (1)
2017-08-28 22:41:54: Scanning devices...
2017-08-28 22:41:54: Device found: ATA ST3000DM001-1ER1
2017-08-28 22:41:55: [B]Partition ‘/dev/sda1’ is not properly aligned (first sector: 34, modulo: 34)[/B].
2017-08-28 22:42:07: Device found: WD My Book 1140
2017-08-28 22:42:30: Scan finished.

I don't think that has anything to do with it, but I know that I followed your instructions to the letter when creating /dev/sda1, so I wonder why that error message?

[GreyGeek]

I already terminated it a few hours ago. That external drive doesn't have S.M.A.R.T support, so I couldn't get a report on it, only on sda.

When KDe partition tool started, I got this:

2017-08-28 22:41:54: Using backend plugin: pmlibpartedbackendplugin (1)
2017-08-28 22:41:54: Scanning devices...
2017-08-28 22:41:54: Device found: ATA ST3000DM001-1ER1
2017-08-28 22:41:55: [B]Partition ‘/dev/sda1’ is not properly aligned (first sector: 34, modulo: 34)[/B].
2017-08-28 22:42:07: Device found: WD My Book 1140
2017-08-28 22:42:30: Scan finished.

I don't think that has anything to do with it, but I know that I followed your instructions to the letter when creating /dev/sda1, so I wonder why that error message?

Not my instructions. Oshunluver is the master of HD partitioning and formatting. I couldn't say if the "misalignment" is the cause of your external USB HD sleep problem or not, but oshunluver probably knows.

Without trying to copy files to the mounted USB HD does your system appear to run normally without lag?

I found this info:
https://blog.hqcodeshop.fi/archives/...rformance.html

[oshunluvr]

That is a warning about the grub partition and can be safely ignored. I seriously doubt the configuration of a hard drive impacts the connectivity of a USB device.