Bash script clobbers something vital (lucid)

[compdoc]

When building systems, copying a few very large files used to be an excellent way to test a system. If the hardware, or certain bios settings, the ram, or the drivers were wrong/bad, the system would hang during the transfer or the transfer would be interrupted. 

A large transfer should flow smoothly and with no pauses - from drive to drive, or from system to network share.