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I am trying to copy a large (4.4 GB) file to an external usb drive.

Unfortunately, about halfway through my computer freezes.

I know my root partition is becoming too small (yes, I already emptied trash, and tmp there is no real folder taking up too much space.

I think that when trying to copy a file it gets put in a buffer first, and since I have less then 4GB disksize left it might freeze my computer? Any solutions? I use opensuse.

Archemar
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dorien
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2 Answers2

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Without any more information than this I am going to guess you are trying to copy a 4.4 GB file to an external drive with the FAT filesystem. FAT can not handle files larger than 4 GB.

arnefm
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  • Why would this make the computer freeze? – Faheem Mitha Mar 22 '15 at 19:25
  • Ah yes FAT32, you are right. The computer freezing, I think might have had to do with the tmp directory making the hard disk full – dorien Mar 23 '15 at 11:47
  • I have no idea why this would freeze your computer, but you can try splitting the file into two pieces and copy the pieces to the external drive. See http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/61774/create-a-tar-archive-split-into-blocks-of-a-maximum-size – arnefm Mar 23 '15 at 14:45
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I'm thinking of an IOPS issue. That usually makes your computer sluggish and eventually freeze. To check it, start the copy process and monitor CPU wait time (wa) using top command:

$top
top - 13:24:59 up 6 days, 56 min,  8 users,  load average: 0.86, 0.65, 0.63
Tasks: 247 total,   2 running, 245 sleeping,   0 stopped,   0 zombie
%Cpu(s): 12.3 us,  2.2 sy,  0.0 ni, 85.4 id,  0.2 wa,  0.0 hi,  0.0 si,  0.0 st

Notice the wa field on the last line above. If that percent goes to high, 50-70 or more (depending on system load), your computer will become sluggish and , eventually, freeze.

If you find out it's an IOPS issue, you either use another/better USB drive, or, you pause the copy process until CPU wait time drops under 5% and then resume it.

Filling all the available space on disks will not freeze your computer but, instead, show an error message.

petry
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