Hiya,

I am currently using a 9.1gb disk via a Powertec SCSI2 card on an 
ARM710 system.  I am using the system as a small College news server.

The system has been running fine for a about 5 weeks up until 5 days 
ago when the first major expiry started - which has taken over 50 
hours.  The problem seems to be that the process is working for 2 
seconds and then waiting for 30 (or more) waiting 'in disk' accroding 
to ps before it does anything more.  Admittedly the history database 
is large, but i still have expirey problems when the expiry database 
has been cut in half.

Also, i am getting a lot of errors in /var/log/messages:

Jul 31 11:09:57 news /netbsd: inode vp: type VBLK, usecount 247,
writecount 0, refcount 27, Jul 31 11:09:57 news /netbsd:   tag 
VT_UFS, ino 3950, on dev 16, 0

Jul 31 11:12:21 news /netbsd: ffs_update: bad
indirect addr (0): inode=1324529 5731096/00577318 ip=f1533200 adr
=f15332b4

Jul 31 11:12:22 news /netbsd: inode vp: type VBLK, usecount
308, writecount 0, refcount 29, Jul 31 11:12:22 news /netbsd:   tag
VT_UFS, ino 3950, on dev 16, 0 

Jul 31 11:13:07 news /netbsd:
ffs_update: bad indirect addr (0): inode=1324529 5731096/00577318
ip=f1533200 adr =f15332b4

Jul 31 11:13:07 news /netbsd: inode vp: type
VBLK, usecount 310, writecount 0, refcount 30, Jul 31 11:13:08 news
/netbsd:   tag VT_UFS, ino 3950, on dev 16, 0

The log file is turned overe _every_ hour because i get soo many of 
these messages.  I am using an own-compiled kernel based on source as 
of July 22nd with 2 patches - one for ffs_inode and the other to 
reduce the network error messages from my etherh card to speed up the 
system.

Is there anything i can do to sort this problem out?  With the 
expirey taking soo long the system is pretty much unusable.  This is 
with a very small newsfeed (rec.*, selected comp and selected news), 
so its not as if there should be a problem.

Any ideas?

Many thanks,

  Duncs.
-- 
+-------------------------------------------------------+
| Duncan Ferguson               Network Support Officer |
|         Worcester College of Higher Education         |
+=======================================================+
| My views are not necessarily supported by the college |
|                And who can blame them?                |
+-------------------------------------------------------+