Oy! After doing some research and actually changing machines, I isolated the problem.
Linux. well, no, not really, but the drivers for the SATA controller I have are so horrendously bad that they crap out under load. How they ever got considered "releasable" is another question entirely. Once I moved to another box with different controller, but nearly identical drives, the problem went away, and performance went up by a factor of 4+. Chris -- | Christopher Petrilli | [EMAIL PROTECTED]
