Copying / moving large files slows things down terribly

I’m using KDE4.3.1 (although this also affected earlier versions of KDE4) on 11.1 and find that when I copy or move large files that my system really becomes sluggish and clicking menu items or opening new apps really lag. I expect some lag but it seems to be abnormal. Is this normal behaviour? I hate drawing these comparisons but it seems to be worse in oS than what I’m used to in XP.

Is there any way to reduce the process priority for moving / copying files cpu and disk? I.E. if I’m copying a large file and then start a new app (or perform any other disk or cpu intensive tasks in the foreground for that matter) then I’d like that to take priority and to slow the copying of the file.

As there are no replies, I assume there is no real solution so I guess I just need to live with it.

A complex problem with many pages to read…

I’ve seen mentions the tips here help Tales from responsivenessland: why Linux feels slow, and how to fix that — Rudd-O.com I tried didn’t see much improvement but then also don’t see too much lag.

Related bug to kernel, Bug 12309 – Large I/O operations result in slow performance and high iowait times

Then google is your friend you’ll see a variety of distro’s and fixes.

I thought it was just my machine! Also my USB drive is a LUKS partition so I thought it was just that making everything slow.

It might also be an incompatability/problem with certain chipsets.

Thanks for the links though FeatherMonkey, I’ll have a look at those later :slight_smile:

Thanks I’ll take a look at those links.

I wondered when USB would be mentioned. Your CPU has to do a lot more work sending stuff across USB.

High Cpu Usage While Using Usb Hd? - openSUSE Forums