Scheduling multi-core systems

[Swifty]

In the good old days, when systems had just one processor, it was easy
to stop a background task from hogging your system; you set it to idle
priority.

This no longer works, and the more processors you have, the worse the
problem is.

My system just started its daily backup, and that is so I/O bound that
it seriously affects any other process doing disc I/O.

Setting it to idle priority has almost no effect, as my system has
enough CPU to keep up with everything that I'm doing, with plenty left
over for the backup.

Is there any simple mechanism to restrict a tasks I/O rate?

I have one workaround - set it to idle priority, then start
idle-priority program(s) that simply consume CPU in order to keep the
backup at bay. This works, but it really shouldn't be necessary.

And if you say that the backup should have its own I/O rate controls,
then could you mention that to the Synctoy developers, please?

 

[Leonard Grey]

Buy backup software that offers throttling as a feature.

 

[Swifty]

Buy backup software that offers throttling as a feature.

Curiously, the backup software that I did purchase does support
throttling, but even that has its problems. It is happy to throttle its
I/O throughput, but only as long as it detects human activity
(presumably it is watching keystrokes/mouse movements). This is fine, as
far as I'm concerned, but when I stop using my PC, the backup runs
full tilt, and really annoys my wife, who is trying to view webpages
through our (now overloaded) router.

I'll either start Synctoy earlier in the morning, or get up later in future.