slow when copying

[Soren Orel <soren.orel@gmail.com>]

..soo

I use Debian Lenny with GNOME.
Sometimes I backup my data on my laptop to a USB HDD.

But when I copy the data to the USB HDD, GNOME slows down, very slow, I mean it sometimes just freezes for seconds :S

Can I give a priority for the copy, so that I could use my PC when I'm backing up my files? Right now, I'm copying in midnight commander.

thank you!

p.s.: I wrote this in vim (after logging in at "ALT+CTRL+F2"), because GNOME became so slow, it's faster this way :D (still copying..)