cvs checkout: cannot rewrite CVS/Entries.Backup: No space left on device
cvs [checkout aborted]: cannot make directory press: No space left on device

I don't think this smells like a problem on the CVS server but on the 
client instead.

Server:

/dev/cciss/c0d0p1      17G   67M   16G   1% /
tmpfs                 1.9G     0  1.9G   0% /dev/shm
/dev/cciss/c0d0p5     2.8G  1.6G  1.2G  58% /tmp
/dev/cciss/c0d0p6     9.2G  827M  7.9G  10% /usr
/dev/cciss/c0d0p7      46G   11G   34G  24% /var
/dev/cciss/c0d0p8     597G  561G  5.1G 100% /home