[TriLUG] usb disks

[stan briggs]

greetings,

intelligent questions and/or recommendations are greatly appreciated!

thanks,
stan

problem:
- my 120G external usb-attached disks are very! slow for large (20G)
file work.
- when i try to write directly to my usb disks (using any of the linux
tools (tar/dump) or the nt tools (ntbackup)) the disks "hang". the
orange write light stays on and the system starts responding very(!)
slowly. eventually the application generates an error and fails. (i do
not remember which error now. i haven't done that in a while.)
- it works better when i write the application output to a local disk,
copy (not move!) the file, then delete the local copy. when i do this
the system stops responding for minutes at a time and the orange write
light comes on. when the system starts responding again the green
'ready' light comes back on. it iterates through this until the entire
file is copied. i believe that it has run to completion for every file
that i've done this with.

configuration and background:
+ rh9
+ a pair of 120G disks sitting inside of individual enclosures that
provide usb 
  interfaces. [i use these for backups (no, i do not believe in tapes).]
+ each enclosure is plugged into a power external usb hub which is then
plugged into the linux box.
+ unbranded little external usb hub.
+ working with these disks in 'normal' mode everything is okay. i can
create and move files and directories from the gui or from the command
line. copying/cutting/pasting of many small files/directories works
okay.
+ i believe that these enclosures would connect at usb2 speeds but my
rh9 box only has a 1.whatever interface.
+ file sizes are never larger than 20G.
+ when i got the drives connected and working i mkfs'ed them. they are
both ext2.