OT - I/O and CPU load

[Brian Stults <bs7452@csc.albany.edu>]

Hello,

I'm sorry that this is off-topic, but I think many people here would be
able to answer this question easily.  The unix system in my research
center has a file server with 4 CPUs.  I don't know all the specifics of
the machine, but my question is rather general anyway.  Basically, the
file server is the fastest of all the Sun stations by far, so everyone
logs into it to run their jobs.  Some of these jobs last for several
days and are very processor intensive.  It "feels" to me like my I/O
intensive jobs slow down when these processor-intensive jobs are
running.  However, our sysadmin insists that cpu-intensive jobs will
have no effect on I/O intensive jobs.  Is this generally true?  

Thanks very much for any information you can give me.  I would like to
make the case that the file server should be just a file server and that
all these week-long jobs should be run somewhere else, but I just don't
know if that is a valid argument.

Thanks,
Brian
-- 

Brian J. Stults
Doctoral Candidate
Department of Sociology
University at Albany - SUNY
Phone: (518) 442-4652  Fax: (518) 442-4936
Web: http://www.albany.edu/~bs7452