> often taking 10 seconds to list just 5 files in an NFS-mounted That screams network issue.
+ Check your network interface stats for errors (ifconfig) + Check your duplex setting -- many switches do not really do "auto" well. Hard-coding to full-duplex helps, but if you have a managed switch, you need to make sure the switch ports are set to FD as well. + Swap network cables (I know, I know.. but its happened) + Are you using any centralized user id store for user accounts? A long 'ls' could also be a slow libnss query trying to resolve uid -> user name + syslog and 'dmesg' for kernel errors, as Johan mentioned The error occurring with local disk is puzzling-- are you using any VM technology?
