Slow harddisk

Ng Pek Yong (npy@mailhost.net)
Thu, 9 May 2002 18:28:21 +0800 (SGT)


I have 2 Maxtor 5T060H6 HD (60G each), attached to a Promise FastTrak 100
TX2.

I am using the Promise card as a dumb IDE controller card.
I run Linux's built-in RAID on the 2 drives (RAID1).
The OS version is 2.4.7-10 (RedHat 7.2)

The problem is that I have exceptionally slow HD performance, despite
playing around w/ hdparm.

Here's how it look like

-------------------------------
hdparm -iv /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
multcount = 16 (on)
I/O support = 3 (32-bit w/sync)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 0 (off)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
nowerr = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 119150/16/63, sectors = 120103200, start = 0

Model=Maxtor 5T060H6, FwRev=TAH71DP0, SerialNo=T6HM013C
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=-66060037, LBA=yes, LBAsects=120103200
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255)
Drive Supports : ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 0 : ATA-1 ATA-2 ATA-3
ATA-4 ATA-5 ATA-6

--------------------------------

hdparm -tT /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.50 seconds =256.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 18.46 seconds = 3.47 MB/sec

--------------------------------

As u can see, my buffered disk read is maxed out at 3.5MB/sec.
I have tweaked with -c, -m, -u, -d, -X etc, to no avail.

Any idea if it is RAID1, the Maxtor HD or the Promise card the cause for
the slowdown?

Thanks,
-PY

----------------------------------

Other info:

cat /proc/cpuinfo
processor : 0
vendor_id : AuthenticAMD
cpu family : 6
model : 6
model name : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1500+
stepping : 2
cpu MHz : 1333.420
cache size : 256 KB
fdiv_bug : no
hlt_bug : no
f00f_bug : no
coma_bug : no
fpu : yes
fpu_exception : yes
cpuid level : 1
wp : yes
flags : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca
cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips : 2660.76

# cat /proc/meminfo
total: used: free: shared: buffers: cached:
Mem: 525709312 276729856 248979456 2166784 78929920 109309952
Swap: 1083760640 0 1083760640
MemTotal: 513388 kB
MemFree: 243144 kB
MemShared: 2116 kB
Buffers: 77080 kB
Cached: 106748 kB
SwapCached: 0 kB
Active: 32960 kB
Inact_dirty: 152984 kB
Inact_clean: 0 kB
Inact_target: 3172 kB
HighTotal: 0 kB
HighFree: 0 kB
LowTotal: 513388 kB
LowFree: 243144 kB
SwapTotal: 1058360 kB
SwapFree: 1058360 kB
NrSwapPages: 264590 pages

-
To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/