here is the output from top

19806 root 25 0 612 612 264 R 6.9 0.0 0:09 0 gzip

this is the first entry under the column headings
load average is around 8

what can i do to improve the speed of gzip? is there a way to tell what it's doing?

thanks

Appears to be making backups, you cannot however optimize it.

thanks linuxguy

how about this:
24162 diradmin 15 0 2900 2900 2128 R 6.1 0.2 0:02 0 php