Why do some folders backup very slowly while all others are fast at the same time?

[Eric Robinson]

Check out the following iotop output. Note that there are 4 rdiff-backups going 
at the same time, from the same source to the same destination. 3 of the 
backups are going at 120-200 MB/s, but one of them is only going at 9 MB/s. We 
have observed this behavior multiple times, and always with the same source 
folder. The  /zpool0/store51b/db_rsyncs/site816 folder is large compared to the 
others (around 2TB), but the size of the folder should not impact the transfer 
speed should it?

Total DISK READ :    1096.30 M/s | Total DISK WRITE :     458.39 M/s
Actual DISK READ:     157.71 M/s | Actual DISK WRITE:      20.10 M/s
    TID  PRIO  USER     DISK READ  DISK WRITE  SWAPIN     IO>    COMMAND
3289403 be/4 root      128.61 M/s  183.57 M/s  0.00 % 38.48 % python3.6 -s 
/usr/bin/rdiff-backup --tempdir /zpool0/rdiff_tmpdir --~--force 
/zpool0/store51b/db_rsyncs/site189 /remote_rdiffs.nfs/site189
3232252 be/4 root      163.58 M/s   41.02 M/s  0.00 % 18.51 % python3.6 -s 
/usr/bin/rdiff-backup --tempdir /zpool0/rdiff_tmpdir --~--force 
/zpool0/store51b/db_rsyncs/site186 /remote_rdiffs.nfs/site186
348290 be/4 root        9.04 M/s    3.67 M/s  0.00 %  1.47 % python3.6 -s 
/usr/bin/rdiff-backup --tempdir /zpool0/rdiff_tmpdir --~--force 
/zpool0/store51b/db_rsyncs/site816 /remote_rdiffs.nfs/site816
3056376 be/4 root      191.39 M/s  150.88 M/s  0.00 %  0.00 % python3.6 -s 
/usr/bin/rdiff-backup --tempdir /zpool0/rdiff_tmpdir --~--force 
/zpool0/store51b/db_rsyncs/site179 /remote_rdiffs.nfs/site179

-Eric


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