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lintoo
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 8:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm having troubles with my new Gentoo setup. I have a Samsung 5400rpm drive. I know for a fact it is ATA100 with DMA ability. In the BIOS I have it set for PIO mode 4 and DMA mode 5.

When I do something like:
Code:
hdparm -d1 /dev/hda


It tells me the old "Not available". (And yes, of course I'm doing this from root :))

My motherboard is an MSI KT3Ultra2. It has the VIA8235 chipset. I did a kernel recompile last night with the VIA8xxxx options, but I still cannot set DMA. I think this would be a major detriment to my system performance? It is not terribly slow at the moment, but speedups are always welcomed. :)

Any help would be appreciated.
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woody77
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 9:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Run:
Code:

hdparm -tT /dev/hda


If the Buffered Disk Reads are <20MB/sec, then you probably have room for improvement, otherwise, you might not.

What's the result from:
Code:

hdparm -I /dev/hda
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lintoo
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Code:
hdparm -I /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 
ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       SAMSUNG SV4002H
        Serial Number:      0379J1FRC54530
        Firmware Revision:  QP100-07
Standards:
        Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 1
        Supported: 6 5 4 3
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   4047
        heads           16      16
        sectors/track   63      255
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:   16511760
        LBA    user addressable sectors:   78242976
        device size with M = 1024*1024:       38204 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:       40060 MBytes (40 GB)
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(cannot be disabled)
        bytes avail on r/w long: 4      Queue depth: 1
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16
        Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 0
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns




Code:
 hdparm /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  3 (32-bit w/sync)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 4870/255/63, sectors = 78242976, start = 0




Code:
hdparm -tT /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   856 MB in  2.01 seconds = 426.51 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   18 MB in  3.07 seconds =   5.87 MB/sec


This is extremely poor. :(
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woody77
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 10:17 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

After some poking around, I think I found some very interesting differences in HD performances:

Seagate ST94811A, laptop ATA100 40GB drive, 5400rpm, 8MB cache:
- Interface Transfer rate: 100MB/sec
- Internal transfer rate: 386Mb/sec
- Avg. sustained transfer rate: > 34.5MB/sec
- Theoretical Max Sustained transfer rate: 48MB/sec

Seagate ST340014A, desktop ATA100 40GB drive, 7200rpm, 2MB cache:
- Interface Transfer rate: 100MB/sec
- Internal transfer rate: 683Mb/sec
- Avg. sustained transfer rate: > 58MB/sec
- Theoretical Max Sustainted transfer rate: 85MB/sec

Seagate ST380013AS, desktop SATA150 80Gb drive, 7200rpm, 8MB cache
- Interface Transfer rate: 150MB/sec
- Internal trasfer rate: 683Mb/sec
- Avg. sustained transfer rate: > 58MB/sec
- Theoretical Max Sustained trasnfer rate: 85MB/sec

Seagate ST336753LW, desktop/server SCSI-320 80GB, 15Krpm, 8MB cache
- Interface Transfer rate: 320MB/sec
- Internal transfer rate: 609-891Mb/sec
- Sustained transfer rate: 57-86MB/sec
- Theoretical Sustained Transfer rate: 76-111MB/sec

Which, I think, basically proves my thoughts that the transfer rates we're seeing in hdparm are going to max-out at the avg sustained transfer rate of the disk, which is the theoretical transfer rate, minus some overhead. From my math, it seems there's about a 25-30% overhead, so the realistic max's are about 70-75% of the internal transfer rates for the drives.

So for my laptop, with it's 240-333Mb/s internal transfer rate, I shouldn't expect more than 22-29MB/sec of measure transfer rates. And it falls right into that at 22-26, depending on lots of stuff.

Of course, this only is for sustained reads. Any kind of burst traffic is likely to be much faster, but if the read-ahead buffer can't cope with it, it'll fall back to seeks and reads.

Which again seems to imply that you want rpms for low seek times, and high internal transfer rates to get it over the wire, and your interface to the system is much, much less important than your HD's internal capabilities are.
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woody77
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

lintoo wrote:
Code:
hdparm -I /dev/hda
 
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(cannot be disabled)
        bytes avail on r/w long: 4      Queue depth: 1
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16
        Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 0
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns




Code:
 hdparm /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  3 (32-bit w/sync)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 4870/255/63, sectors = 78242976, start = 0




Code:
hdparm -tT /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   856 MB in  2.01 seconds = 426.51 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   18 MB in  3.07 seconds =   5.87 MB/sec


This is extremely poor. :(


yah, you betcha, it's poor. :(

Since DMA is disabled, and you can't seem to enable it, it's probably a chipset issue. Latest kernel sources and sure that you've included the right chipset support? Some of the chipsets were, IIRC, blacklisted for bad behavior, or perhaps it was drives... So that might be an issue

Next, make sure that you're actually using your newly built kernel (mounted boot before you copied it over?).

And also go through the output to dmesg. I'm sure there's something in there that's explaining why dma is being disabled.
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Strukt
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 05, 2004 11:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ok people, lookie here!

dmesg, looks ok huh?
Code:
VP_IDE: IDE controller at PCI slot 0000:00:07.1
VP_IDE: chipset revision 6
VP_IDE: not 100% native mode: will probe irqs later
ide: Assuming 33MHz system bus speed for PIO modes; override with idebus=xx
VP_IDE: VIA vt82c686b (rev 40) IDE UDMA100 controller on pci0000:00:07.1
    ide0: BM-DMA at 0xd000-0xd007, BIOS settings: hda:DMA, hdb:DMA
    ide1: BM-DMA at 0xd008-0xd00f, BIOS settings: hdc:pio, hdd:pio
hda: WDC WD800BB-75CAA0, ATA DISK drive
hdb: WDC WD800BB-00CAA1, ATA DISK drive
ide0 at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
hda: max request size: 128KiB
hda: Host Protected Area detected.
        current capacity is 156250000 sectors (80000 MB)
        native  capacity is 156250080 sectors (80000 MB)
hda: 156250000 sectors (80000 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target0/lun0: p1 p2 p3
hdb: max request size: 128KiB
hdb: 156301488 sectors (80026 MB) w/2048KiB Cache, CHS=65535/16/63, UDMA(100)
 /dev/ide/host0/bus0/target1/lun0: p1


Yep, two almost the same drives. One WD80GB as a master, and another WD80GB as slave.

Look beneath, drives look okay, right?

Code:
h0mer / # hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=WDC WD800BB-75CAA0, FwRev=16.06V16, SerialNo=WD-WMA8E1317211
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156250000
 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
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

 * signifies the current active mode


And the other drive...
Code:
h0mer / # hdparm -i /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

 Model=WDC WD800BB-00CAA1, FwRev=17.07W17, SerialNo=WD-WMA8E2822537
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=57600, SectSize=600, ECCbytes=40
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
 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
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

 * signifies the current active mode


Then we run some tests on /dev/hda

Code:
h0mer / # hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   380 MB in  2.01 seconds = 189.08 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:    6 MB in  3.33 seconds =   1.80 MB/sec


And the same test on /dev/hdb

Code:
h0mer / # hdparm -tT /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   484 MB in  2.01 seconds = 240.24 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   94 MB in  3.06 seconds =  30.74 MB/sec


The performance differs dramaticly, but i do not understand why because the drives are almost identical, they are setup the same in bios. HDA is primary master, and HDB is primary slave, on the same cable.

I do not know how to solve this problem, ofcourse i've tried disabling dma, enabling dma and so forth. No good there. I also have the correct chipset compiled directly into the kernel. (2.6.3). I recently upgraded to kernel 2.3.6 from 2.6.0 in an attempt to get rid of this problem but it didnt help.

Help me ;)
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woody77
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 06, 2004 12:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Try making the two HDs both masters (hda and hdc, and the other two drives as slaves (assuming these are opticals?)

Does that get you anything? Seems like it's not a cabling issue, unless the master drive doesn't like the cabling or the master-slave-cs option.

Another thing to try is to swap the drives, and see how that changes things.

And yes, you'll be mucking with Grub and fstab to do all the drive swapping.

Normally it's considered good practice to put to the two fast drives on separate channels so that they don't compete with each other for bandwidth on it.

If you have a liveCD, can you boot from that? And if so, different or the same results? It also might help to do the swapping around when using the livecd, so you don't need to much with grub and fstab to keep everything sane.
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Strukt
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PostPosted: Sun Mar 07, 2004 7:44 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

hi woody, or anyone else for that matter :).

Ok, first thing first. My drive i had problems with works fine now. What i did was to take that particular drive, put it in another gentoo based computer, i ran the hdparm benchmark again, and i got the same lousy results. At that part i started to believe that the drives controllerboard was fried or something. Anyway.

I took the drive back into the original computer again, blowed away all partitions, made new ones. Made an ext3 filesystem, and after that ran some benchmarks again. And lookie... the speed is up to around 30MB / sec again.

I dunno what the problem was....but apparently a reformatted harddrive solved my particular problem... i guess the partition table was farked up somehow, we have had some powercuts here....could be related to that i presume.

Anyway, it works fine now! :)
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woody77
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 6:01 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

While I have no idea how hdparm reads the data (which access mechanism), I'm surprised that it was changed by the reformat. Not saying it isn't true, just surprised.

Glad you've got it working.
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Stieltje
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 8:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi all.


I am building myself a new computer, and of course I want a nice fast disc to go with it..

But reading this thread, it does not seem worth the extra $ to get SATA?


with my 80 GB Seagate 7.200 I get:

Code:


PanzerFaust root # hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   1352 MB in  2.00 seconds = 674.56 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  164 MB in  3.04 seconds =  54.02 MB/sec



how much faster would a SATA seagate 80 GB be?

or any other SATA disk for that matter.


Thanks.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

don't waste your $$ for the SATA - drive, it'll give
you nothing more. Your ATA drives performance is
just great and you would not get any better values
using a SATA drive.

The most important feature of having a SATA - bus
system would be that you could have a bigger number
of disks in your system than with using simple ATA.
And the performance gain is simpy too small to pay extra money for.
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 5:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

der_maddin, I have a nforce-2 motherboard from abit (nfs-7 v-2.0) and I have a P-ATA hard disc (ST380023A) Barracuda-V with 80 Gb.

I'm running 2.6 kernel and I only have:

Timing buffered disk reads: 98 MB in 3.00 seconds = 32.62 MB/sec

This is very poor, not to? I was thinking in going to SATA, because a person I know is getting 66 mb/sec out of a sata drive. It's double speed!!

What tip can you give me about this?
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der_maddin
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:12 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

i think you should be able to get at least
about 40 ~ 50 Mb/s out of your current P-ATA disk,
depending a bit on how big the buffer of your device
is and how fast it spins. ( and depending on your
m/b's chipset, if you've select kernel support for your one etc .. )

EDIT : from what i've looked up
http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/st380023a.html
it seems your disk has a speed of 7200rpm ( a fast one )
and 2M cache.

try this out ( being root )
Code:

hdparm -X69 -u1 -c3 -d1 -A1 -m16 -a256 -k1

look at the output of this command and post any errors here.
after entering the command do this :
Code:

hdparm -t /dev/hda

and report the values shown back here

( using the settings above, i get about 55 MB/sec for my samsung
sp1614n (160gb, 7200rpm, 8MB) thats not far away from
those values you know from this guy with the sata drive .. )

EDIT : but btw the sp1614n is a great deal, it is available around here
for about 100 euros ... that's not too much for a drive that big =]
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

No improvements. It seems that this controller n-force IDE has a very bad driver because another user as commented me that the same PATA hd connected to S-ATA throught a pata-2-sata converter runs faster than in PATA.

If you don't know any other tip or trick, this night I'll be testing if that SATA driver is better and report.

bash-2.05b# hdparm -X69 -u1 -c3 -d1 -A1 -m16 -a256 -k1 /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
setting fs readahead to 256
setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 3
setting multcount to 16
setting unmaskirq to 1 (on)
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
setting keep_settings to 1 (on)
setting xfermode to 69 (UltraDMA mode5)
setting drive read-lookahead to 1 (on)
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 1 (on)
readahead = 256 (on)

bash-2.05b# hdparm -t /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffered disk reads: 102 MB in 3.00 seconds = 33.96 MB/sec
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

sorry, i don't know anything else to improve your performance
but i keep wondering why you can't hit at least the 40Mb/s
barrier with your drive and controller ...
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 08, 2004 7:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

yes, the same here.

I think it's a very poor performance even when I heard that some seagate drives have some issues that must be corrected at driver level in order for the drive to handle the data in a correct way.

If any of you have some ideas, I'm going to go for SATA in 2 - 3 hours.

Thanks to all of you ;)
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 12:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

seagate seems rather vague on the performance specs for this drive...

INTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbits/sec) _______up to 570
SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE (MB/sec)__________27 to 44
EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 100

So perhaps you're getting the best you're going to get from it. Do an hdparm -I on each drive (yours and your friends that's faster) and see if the firmware is different, or anything else. Could be something like that.
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I cannot understand nothing.

I'm actually on SATA and the same happens. 33 mb/sec.

I'm starting to think that this drive is a little piece of shit. :cry:
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 09, 2004 8:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

That's probably 33MB/sec, not 33mb/sec. And it's probably as fast as the drive itself can read off the platters. And there's no way to make that faster. It's within spec per seagate (see above comments).
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 10, 2004 7:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Maybe I am just lucky with my Seagate then ?


anyway, I got a ST380011A drive attached to a epox8rda+ mobo (nforce2), 2.4.23-ck1 -sources

http://www.seagate.com/support/disc/specs/ata/st380011a.html


PanzerFaust root # hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1324 MB in 2.00 seconds = 661.53 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 154 MB in 3.02 seconds = 51.04 MB/sec


/etc/conf.d/hdparm:


Code:

# You can either set hdparm arguments for each drive using disc*_args and cdrom$
# eg.
# disc0_args="-d1 -X66"
# disc1_args"-d1"
# cdrom0_args="-d1"

# Or, you can set hdparm options for ALL drives using all_args..
# eg.
# this mimics the behavior of the current script
all_args="-d1"





hdparm /dev/hda :

Code:


/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 9729/255/63, sectors = 156301488, start = 0



hdparm -i /dev/hda

Code:


/dev/hda:

 Model=ST380011A, FwRev=3.04, SerialNo=3JV0NWSH
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
 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
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2:

 * signifies the current active mode





ok, maybe this is a lengthy and unecessary post, but just some figures and such to compare to your own (seagate) disc.


cheers
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woody77
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Joined: 06 Feb 2004
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Location: SC Mtns, CA, USA

PostPosted: Thu Mar 11, 2004 12:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And in comparing specs on the two drives, the 7200.7 is faster than the ATA V is.

ATA V:
Code:

INTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbits/sec) _______up to 570
SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE (MB/sec)__________27 to 44
EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 100


7200.7
Code:

INTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 85.4
SUSTAINED TRANSFER RATE (MB/sec)__________up to 58
EXTERNAL TRANSFER RATE (Mbytes/sec) ______up to 100


Looks like it's faster to the tune of 32%. And this seems to be held up by the numbers we're seeing here. 30% faster than 40MB/sec is 52MB/sec. So it seems like you should be able to get up to at least 40 or so... But probably not beyond that. I wonder what the bottle-neck on your system is.
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dmouritsendk
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Joined: 22 Jun 2002
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PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 5:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Stieltje wrote:
Hi all.


I am building myself a new computer, and of course I want a nice fast disc to go with it..

But reading this thread, it does not seem worth the extra $ to get SATA?


with my 80 GB Seagate 7.200 I get:

Code:


PanzerFaust root # hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   1352 MB in  2.00 seconds = 674.56 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  164 MB in  3.04 seconds =  54.02 MB/sec



how much faster would a SATA seagate 80 GB be?

or any other SATA disk for that matter.


Thanks.


SATA have more bandwidth available per channel(and only one device per channel), allowing for faster disks. But ATM it seem that most SATA disks are exact replicas of IDE disk just with a evolved interface. The faster disk will come though, WD have already introduced a 10K-RPM RAPTOR line that reads about 70MB/s(which is faster than any ATA100/133 disk available, that I know of anyways :)).

Also, one of the "big deals" about SATA is that it makes better use of the PCI bus with its serial nature. Allowing for 150Mb/sec transfers per channel/port, which makes it a good choice for RAID solutions with a lot of fast (+60MB/sec) disk is connected.

But is SATA "worth it"? Dunno really, depends on what you'll use it for. If you just need a new disk with good performance, there isn't much difference between the average SATA disk and the average ATA disk. Though, if you want to stripe more than two disks delivering ~60MB/Sec the SATA solution would probably be the best(non-scsi) way to go.

Me personally, went with a Maxtor SATA drive when i made my current system, mostly because the motherboard i had bought for it had these 4 SATA port with nothing connected to them. Since there was already a burner attached to one of the ATA133 channels, I felt that the SATA ports needed a device the most(also, SATA cables are cool lookin') :roll:

Since I only got one hard-drive in the box, I most likely wouldn't be able to notice any differences in speed as opposed to a ATA133 model of the drive. Which this head-2-head between two "identical" Maxtor drives with different interfaces clearly shows, the ATA133 is even a bit faster is some of the benchmarks. But the difference is tiny. If you try and throw a WD Raptor in to the Head-2-head, you'll get a hint of what the "future" is like for SATA. Then throw in a couple of SCSI320 models, and you got a pretty good overview what the different interfaces offer/are-good-at ATM. Its also clear from this that transfer speeds isn't everything, the 10K scsi drive transfers less data than the 10K SATA, but is a faster in 9/10 of the server benchmarks.

Of-course more disks like the Raptor will come be introduced, which utilizes more of the SATA bandwidth. Making SATA show its advantages over ATA133 more clearly in disk-2-disk comparisons.

Try looking around storagereview.com(its a good resource), compare some drives and see the results and figure out what drive(SATA, ATA or SCSI) fits ur need the best.
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grzewho
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PostPosted: Mon May 31, 2004 10:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

der_maddin wrote:

Code:

hdparm -X69 -u1 -c3 -d1 -A1 -m16 -a256 -k1


what`s the purpose of the -a256 and -A1 switches ?
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error`
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 12:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

well, first my hdparm results:
Code:

hdparm -tT /dev/hda
 /dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   916 MB in  2.00 seconds = 457.38 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  112 MB in  3.01 seconds =  37.15 MB/sec

hdparm -tT /dev/hdb
 /dev/hdb:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   976 MB in  2.00 seconds = 487.10 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  166 MB in  3.03 seconds =  54.85 MB/sec

hdparm -tT /dev/hdc
 /dev/hdc:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   936 MB in  2.00 seconds = 466.90 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   84 MB in  3.04 seconds =  27.62 MB/sec

hdparm -tT /dev/hdd
 /dev/hdd:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   884 MB in  2.00 seconds = 441.18 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  158 MB in  3.02 seconds =  52.24 MB/sec


but i got a strange problem, when im moving a file from hdb to any other drive i only get around 2-4mB/s. when im moving from hdd/hda to hdb i get around 30-45mB/s and when i moving a file from hdd to hda or otherway around i also get the full speed. so any ideas to fix the speed problem on hdb?

btw.: hdb is a samsung spinpoint 1614n (8mb cache), anyother hdd has 2mb cache and 7200rpm

best regards,
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ikaro
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Joined: 14 Jul 2003
Posts: 2527
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 01, 2004 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

grzewho wrote:
der_maddin wrote:

Code:

hdparm -X69 -u1 -c3 -d1 -A1 -m16 -a256 -k1


what`s the purpose of the -a256 and -A1 switches ?



-a get/set fs readahead
-A set drive read-lookahead flag (0/1)

so with -A1 you enable the feature and then use -a256 to set it.
you can use other values as well, depending of how big you want it ( i mean the -aXXXX)


my results now:
Code:

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   1100 MB in  2.00 seconds = 549.26 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  140 MB in  3.04 seconds =  46.07 MB/sec


i think i posted on this thread before with some results.

I use this in /etc/conf.d/hdparm
hda_args="-d1 -u1 -m16 -c1 -W1 -A1 -k1 -X70 -a64"
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