Performance question

[Alan Fiebig]

>It is possible for your cpu to be 91% idle and your load to be 15.  It might
>be that 15 processes want to be running but they are waiting on the disk.

This is VERY helpful. I am learning a lot form this thread.
I just want to pause and say THANKS to all the help from everyone today
as I work on this.

So, the 'load' stat reflects more on the entire host performance, taking
into account RAM, CPU, disk IO etc., in that 'load' measures how many things want
to run, but can't at that instant.

If this 'load' figure is high, then one has to examine each subsystem:
  CPU (System high? Idle low?)
  RAM (A lot of swap being used?)
  IO  (lots of pending requests?)

Just looking at one subsystem does not reflect the overall performance
of the host. An individual good stat does not mean all is well.

-Alan