On Thu, Nov 6, 2008 at 9:11 AM, Jeffrey L. Taylor
Quoting Hylton Conacher (ZR1HPC)
: Hi,
Looking at the top cmd load average figures I have never seen these numbers for 1.5 or 15 minutes load average ever reach more than a 5.00.
The load figures are the number of tasks/processes ready to run. A load of 1 could be 100% CPU if it makes no I/O calls.
Agreed, But also if you have 2 CPUs (cores) or more, then a "instantaneous" load of 1 means you only have work for one of them to do. So if your "instantaneous" load never exceeds 1 you are basically wasting that second cpu (core). Even with a single CPU, most apps have down time during i/o (disk seeks, etc.) If your "instantaneous" load is above one, then the CPU can switch in that process (task) and work on it during the idle period. So when you go to upgrade a computer, you can look at the load and the CPU utilization combined to try and figure out if you need faster CPUs, or more cores. Greg -- Greg Freemyer Litigation Triage Solutions Specialist http://www.linkedin.com/in/gregfreemyer First 99 Days Litigation White Paper - http://www.norcrossgroup.com/forms/whitepapers/99%20Days%20whitepaper.pdf The Norcross Group The Intersection of Evidence & Technology http://www.norcrossgroup.com -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org