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+---

+layout: post

+title: "Fix system freezing while copying to a flash drive"

+date: 2014-04-26 21:11

+comments: true

+categories: [linux]

+cover: /images/cover/avatar.png

+keywords: linux, kernel, freezing, usb, flash drive, fix, slow, unresponsive

+description: Slow linux desktop while copying to a flash drive

+---

+

+I copied about 10 GiB data from my hard drive to a USB3.0 flash drive.

+Much to my surprise the system started freezing, songs playback became

+interrupted, etc. Eventually I had to wait until the copying process finished.

+

+Well, something like that is simply unacceptable if you have 8-core i7 processor,

+8 GiB RAM and SSD. 

+

+So I've found a simple solution. The problem was wrong setting of dirty pages

+(because of [historical reasons](https://lwn.net/Articles/572928/)).

+It's a [well-known](http://thread.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/1584789/focus=1587022)

+Linux kernel problem.

+

+What I did was:

+

+{% codeblock lang:bash %}

+echo 0 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio

+echo 33554432 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes

+echo 66554432 > /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes

+{% endcodeblock %}

+

+After applying these changes CPU load dropped from 6 to 3 and system was fast 

+and responsive. To make that changes persistent add the lines below to ```/etc/tmpfiles.d/dirty.conf```:

+

+{% codeblock %}

+w /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_ratio - - - - 0

+w /proc/sys/vm/dirty_background_bytes - - - - 33554432

+w /proc/sys/vm/dirty_bytes - - - - 66554432

+{% endcodeblock %}

+

+Maybe it's already fixed in current kernel, I don't know. I'm running OpenSUSE 13.1

+with 3.11.10-7-desktop kernel. 

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