Harddrive Performance wiki tip

dick_turpin · 2007-05-08 19:34:51

Hi All

I've been running ArchLinux for about a week now and love it to bits. The boot and shutdown speed is awsome so now I want to tryout some of the tips on the wiki.

I fancy usining the Harddrive Performance tip 'hdparm -a1024 -c3 -d1 -m16 /dev/hda' but I'm worried about frying my HDD I've done the 'hdparm -i /dev/sda' command which gives me;
/dev/sda:

Model=HTS424040M9AT00 , FwRev=MA2OA71A, SerialNo= MPA25CQ4E15TLE
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1739kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?8?
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78140160
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma3 udma4 udma5
AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a: ATA/ATAPI-2 ATA/ATAPI-3 ATA/ATAPI-4 ATA/ATAPI-5 ATA/ATAPI-6

* signifies the current active mode

I know nothing about this sort of stuff socan some kind person either confirm the code on the tip is OK for my drive or give me a clue what it should be.

Many Thanks
Dick Turpin

Gullible Jones · 2007-05-08 20:53:21

Hmm, that's kind of odd actually. Linux, at least in my experience, likes to set UDMA to the highest possible setting,

byte · 2007-05-08 21:22:32

My notebook from 1999 uses an Ali chipset and after switching to pata the harddrive gets initialized with MDMA2 instead of UDMA2 like before. It's not tragic since the drive doesn't exceed 10 MB/s anyway, just FYI.

dick_turpin · 2007-05-09 18:05:13

Gullible Jones wrote:

Hmm, that's kind of odd actually. Linux, at least in my experience, likes to set UDMA to the highest possible setting,

OK so that gave me a hint, looking at the output I posted it would seem mine is set to udma2 seeing as that has a star next to it.

So is that the fastest I'm going to get?

Many thanks anyway.

Last edited by dick_turpin (2007-05-09 18:05:54)

dmartins · 2007-05-09 18:14:24

dick_turpin wrote:

Gullible Jones wrote:
Hmm, that's kind of odd actually. Linux, at least in my experience, likes to set UDMA to the highest possible setting,
OK so that gave me a hint, looking at the output I posted it would seem mine is set to udma2 seeing as that has a star next to it.
So is that the fastest I'm going to get?
Many thanks anyway.

This really depends on the combination of motherboard and hard drive, but it should be set to the highest speed both can operate at by default..

dick_turpin · 2007-05-09 18:23:20

dmartins wrote:

This really depends on the combination of motherboard and hard drive, but it should be set to the highest speed both can operate at by default..

Well thats me up the creek then, I suppose I could get the specs from the tag off the Dell site but I reckon I've got all I'm gonna get :-(

hybrid · 2007-05-11 13:40:24

Talking about a hdd wiki entry, what about an entry for the smartmontools?
I have never used them but it seems generally to be a good idea to use those too and I couldn't find it in the arch wiki. Or are the smartmontools not that great or whatever? Again, I dunno, never looked into them yet.

billy · 2007-05-12 12:59:21

i have even wierder output from "hdparm -i /dev/sda":

/dev/sda:

 Model=WDC WD1200BEVS-75LAT0                   , FwRev=02.06M02, SerialNo=     WD-WXE706845953
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=50
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?8?
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=231496650
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: Unspecified:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 * signifies the current active mode

there is no '*' at any of the modes

and if i do "hdparm -d1 /dev/sda":

/dev/sda:
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

dmartins · 2007-05-12 17:59:31

billy, when using the new libata driver DMA is always on. I get similar output when running hdparm with the -i flag, however -i displays the info retrieved from the drive at boot time. Try the -I flag instead (it reads the current info from the drive)

Arch Linux

#1 2007-05-08 19:34:51

Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#2 2007-05-08 20:53:21

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#3 2007-05-08 21:22:32

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#4 2007-05-09 18:05:13

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#5 2007-05-09 18:14:24

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#6 2007-05-09 18:23:20

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#7 2007-05-11 13:40:24

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#8 2007-05-12 12:59:21

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

#9 2007-05-12 17:59:31

Re: Harddrive Performance wiki tip

Board footer