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Asked: 2013-04-28 06:32:27 +0800 CST

CPU Usage vs load average [duplicate]

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I'm running debian

iostat -x
Linux 2.6.32-5-amd64 (server56856.uk2net.com)   27/04/13        _x86_64_        (4 CPU)

avg-cpu:  %user   %nice %system %iowait  %steal   %idle
           4.59    0.01    1.08    2.46    0.00   91.85

Device:         rrqm/s   wrqm/s     r/s     w/s   rsec/s   wsec/s avgrq-sz avgqu-sz   await  svctm  %util
sdb               4.63    67.90    2.05   14.91   750.81   654.14    82.80     0.05    2.66   6.91  11.72
sda               4.90    67.90    1.79   14.91   750.10   654.14    84.07     0.06    3.34   7.18  12.00
md0               0.00     0.00    0.12    0.07     1.00     0.57     8.00     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00
md1               0.00     0.00    2.22   81.44    87.81   650.97     8.83     0.00    0.00   0.00   0.00

Which seems nice and low.

But then:

uptime 15:28:07 up 224 days,  3:53,  1 user,  
load average: 2.46, 2.50, 2.37

I have four cores

Why are the load averages so high?

debian

1 Answers

  1. Your disk subsystem is the bottleneck.

    The load average is high if it is higher than the number of CPU cores.

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