On 5 Sep 2001, Alexandr Malusek wrote:
Daniel Greenberg
writes: I recently switched/upgraded from Caldera OpenLinux 2.3 (kernel 2.2.10) to Suse Professional 7.2.
While there's much I like in the new setup, hard drive performance isn't on the list! ... Results for "hdparm -t" (rate for buffered disk reads of 64 MB):
Suse compiled 2.2.19 kernel ~ 9.5 MB/sec self-compiled 2.2.19 kernel ~11.5 MB/sec self-compiled 2.2.18 kernel ~11.5 MB/sec Caldera complied 2.2.10 kernel ~15.5 MB/sec
What hdparm settings do you use? The following is from an old and slow system (550 MHz PIII, Intel 440BX, FUJITSU MPF3204AT HD).
# hdparm -v /dev/hda
/dev/hda: multcount = 16 (on) I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) nowerr = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) geometry = 2491/255/63, sectors = 40031712, start = 0
# hdparm -t /dev/hda
/dev/hda: Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.27 seconds = 19.57 MB/sec
-- Alexandr.Malusek@imv.liu.se
Alexandr: Thanks for your reply. I used hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3, but with the 2.2.19 kernel it doesn't seem to make any difference in performance. I assume this is because dma is already enabled through the kernel configuration options. With 2.2.19 I get before setting anything with hdparm I get multcount = 0 (off) I/O support = 0 (default 16-bit) unmaskirq = 0 (off) using_dma = 1 (on) keepsettings = 0 (off) nowerr = 0 (off) readonly = 0 (off) readahead = 8 (on) After running hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hdb I get setting 32-bit I/O support flag to 3 setting multcount to 16 setting unmaskirq to 1 (on) setting using_dma to 1 (on) setting xfermode to 66 (UltraDMA mode2) multcount = 16 (on) I/O support = 3 (32-bit w/sync) unmaskirq = 1 (on) using_dma = 1 (on) but the performance numbers don't change. (hdparm -t /dev/hdb stays in the 11.5-12 mb/second range). Under the Caldera 2.2.10 kernel there is no dma option in the kernel configuration, and so using hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hdb causes a big jump from <7 MB/second to >15 MB/second as reported by hdparm -t /dev/hdb. - Dan Greenberg Ann Arbor MI