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I need to connect large external hard disks (with many many files) to a system running Ubuntu. I have no idea how the Linux kernel is treating the inodes for the external drives, but attaching huge external drives significantly slows down my system.

How can I avoid this slowdown? I need to keep the hard disks connected while I'm working.

Ubuntu: 10.04 32-bit
HD: 2TB via USB
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  • How big are the external HDDs you are attaching? How are you attaching the HDDs to your system (usb, eSATA)? What version of Ubuntu? 32 or 64-bit? Some additional information in your question will help you get better answers. Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 16:52
  • I don't think that just the mere fact of attaching a hard drive should slow down your system at all. Linux won't cache any inodes or dentries unless you actually use them, and even if you do, it will free the memory it you need it. Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 16:58
  • Any error message appears in dmesg? Commented Apr 26, 2012 at 18:26
  • Are you sure locate or something similar isn't running over the drive? Also: is the drive actually showing activity? What does iostat or vmstat show? Commented Apr 28, 2012 at 5:38
  • The question is a bit unclear about when and how the system will get slow. I'd guess that you want to see unix.stackexchange.com/a/293497/20336 or unix.stackexchange.com/a/48152/20336 Commented May 17, 2017 at 7:33

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