Heavy I/O blocks FreeBSD box for several seconds

[Matt]

> Sic... If you allow me the comparison, FreeBSD development is as open
> as are the US (and, to some extend, most western country) borders
> nowadays open to aliens, and believe me, this is not a compliment.
>
>   - Arnaud
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This is getting offtopic fast. Can we just EGODWIN here? It doesn't 
fulfill the entire requirements, but it's getting close...

Is it possible CPU is the wrong cause of the blocking? Is there perhaps 
memory contention between ZFS/UFS in OP's setup? Could filesystem/disk 
performance be the cause and not obscure technicalities of ULE 
scheduler? Dodgy hardware causing interrupt storms? Ethernet not in 
polling mode?

Matt