You might also consider upgrading your kernel to 2.6.18. I use BackupPC with an external USB HD. With the 2.6.17 the usb subsystem would choke before a full backup would complete. By "choke" I mean that 'ps' would show a 'D' state for all USB related processes. Once the USB subsystem had choked, a command as simple as 'ls /mnt/usbhd' would result in another process hung in 'D' state.
I've upgraded to 2.6.18 and it's doing much better, though its USB support is not yet totally solid. HTH, David -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
