Increasing hard disk write speed

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

I think my system is bottlenecking cause of slow hard disk write speed, i can only rip dvd to my hard drive at 2-4x speed (its a 16x dvd rom drive). is there any way to increase speed without replacing the mobo or hard drive? i just bought them so i dont want to get new ones. its a regular 120Gig 7200RPM IDE hard drive and a cheapo biostar board.

Braempje · l33t Joined: 31 Jan 2003 Posts: 748

Install hdparm, that should speed up everything!

GuidoJ · Guru Joined: 24 Dec 2002 Posts: 444 Location: Netherlands

Of course you should also set the correct parameters in /etc/conf.d/hdparm:

-d1 to enable DMA
-c[1|2|3] to enable 32 bit transfers
-X66 to enable UDMA4

Test with

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

Read the manual and help files for more options.

paranode · l33t Joined: 06 Mar 2003 Posts: 679 Location: Texas

Also, some DVD ROM manufacturers claim that they have 16x drives but purposefully slow the drive down to the 2x range when it's reading CSS-encrypted DVDs. I threw out my old Toshiba and got a Lite-on because of this.
_________________
Meh.

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

it reads at 2x-x4 on both my dvd-rom (its a cheapo one) and my sony dvd-/+/r/rw, so i dont think its that.

heres what i get on hdparm for my root partion (hdb5):

zakl · n00b Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 73

What brand is your 120GB?

hdparm -Tt /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.44 seconds =290.91 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.38 seconds = 46.38 MB/sec

That is my output. I am using a WD 120GB standard drive. I don't know what your hdparm settings are, but from the output you posted above, your bottleneck seems to be your hard drive and not your DVD drive.

Try typing

hdparm -d /dev/hdx (x being the particular drive you want to see)
if it says
using_dma = 1 (on)
then your fine,
using_dma = 0 (off)
then that *could* be your problem.

Anyway, let me know.

Zak

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

yep, DMA is OFF. its a maxtor too. i'll try to follow GuidoJ's instructions to turn it on

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

my /etc/conf.d/hdparm file looks likt this:

all_args="-d1"

disk0_args="-dl -c[1][2][3] -X66"

hdparm -d /dev/hdb5 still says DMA is off after i edited the file and rebooted.
if my hard drive is a slave drive do i need to replace disk0 with something else?

fryfrog · n00b Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 45

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

sweet, i think the rc-update fixed it

Narada · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: London, UK

/etc/conf.d/hdparm

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

holy crap dude! how did you get it up to 711MB/s? SCSI? Raid?

Narada · Guru Joined: 12 Dec 2002 Posts: 300 Location: London, UK

Initially, I was also very surprised at it. The usual figure of my system is 752MB/s but today it is a little lower. I am not using raid or scsi. The machine is a top of the range Dell Dimension 8250 however which came with a 120GB Seagate ST3120023A. My detailed hard drive information is given in my previous post.
_________________
http://dhruba.name/

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

maybe its ATA133 or something like that

syadnom · Guru Joined: 09 May 2002 Posts: 531

right now im running some bittorrent seeds with the following total stats:
103K Download
30k Upload

and i test this same drive that this is downloading to

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.51 seconds =250.98 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.72 seconds = 23.53 MB/sec
(30Gb Maxtor)
Model=Maxtor 53073H4, FwRev=JAC61HU0, SerialNo=F40FESPC
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=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=60030432
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=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 0: 1 2 3 4 5 6

/dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 3 (32-bit w/sync)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 3736/255/63, sectors = 60030432, start = 0

---

you can see im running faster than you with an older slower drive, with significant usage. maybee you should look at some other things, like if your cable is good, maybee its bent or damaged in some way. also check to see if your using generic IDE drivers or if you have support for your interface in the kernel.

jerome187 · Guru Joined: 29 Apr 2003 Posts: 584

i'm using brand new round cables, so i'm pretty sure its not them. i'm not sure what you mean by adding support for my interface. i see a VIA82CXXX chipset support in my kenel config thats not checked. my mobo uses via for sound and lan, so maybe thats what i need to add? its under IDE, ATA and ATAPI Block devices. is that were i shoud be looking?

tisonlyi2 · n00b Joined: 07 May 2003 Posts: 5

[url=http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MK3018GAS-N]This is My Hard drive[/url]

Apparently it has a 2MB buffer, unused at present it seems...

hdparm -i /dev/hda

gives me this:

[quote]Model=TOSHIBA MK3018GAS, FwRev=Q3.03 E, SerialNo=X25I6493T
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=46
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=58605120
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: sdma0 sdma1 sdma2 mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
AdvancedPM=yes: unknown setting WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version: 1 2 3 4 5[/quote]

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

gives this:

[quote]Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.35 seconds =365.71 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 3.08 seconds = 20.78 MB/sec[/quote]

and this is my /etc/conf.d/hdparm:
[quote]
all_args="-c1 -d1 -k1 -m16 -u1 -Z"
[/quote]

(the only un-#-ed line)

any ideas on how i can bump that speed up? how i can get the buffer that's there to function?

I'm an industrial suppier of goldfish. You can have as many scales as you like if you help. :lol:

PS. If anyone could tell me what i'm doing wrong with the formatting... :p

CDLM · Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2003 8:06 am Post subject:

so yeah, when I do hdparm -Tt hda(and hdb) i get approx:

Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 1.38 seconds = 92.75 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.10 seconds = 30.48 MB/sec

they're quantum 40gig (bought a maxtor, they gave me a quantum ... damn merger) and a western digital 80gig (a gift from the parents)

Is the 92.75 good? They're ATA-100 drives so I'm not sure if this is way low or right on par... They're not exceptional drives, but I just want to make sure my speeds are about where they should be...

- Dave -