Speeding up the HD and some misc Perl Tips

TheWart

Well, one part of the gentoo manual that I think needs some fixing is the post-installation section. I think one of the most often missed Linux 'tweaks' are those that have to do with hdparm.

To test your drive speed (good to do after every change to see how it affects you)

JefP@@ · Posted: Fri May 24, 2002 12:20 pm Post subject:

thx for the info, but it seemed everything was already at max performance

Grtz

TheWart · Posted: Fri May 24, 2002 7:52 pm Post subject:

Well, thats a nice problem to have

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On the box it said it was designed for Win XP or better, so why won't it work with Linux?

JefP@@ · Posted: Wed May 29, 2002 4:39 pm Post subject:

lol

I guess it is ... if it were the case with everything ...

jeropa · n00b Joined: 10 May 2002 Posts: 12 Location: Winnipeg

Before:

slonocode · Apprentice Joined: 03 Jun 2002 Posts: 273

when trying to add dma with

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda

i get an error not permitted.

It is a WD 40 gig 7200 ata 100 disk.

principito · Posted: Mon Jun 03, 2002 9:58 pm Post subject:

I've been using hdparm for a while to optimize my HD and it works great. However one thing you must be careful of is that if your BIOS is set to use UDMA-4 then you _MUST_ set hdparm to UDMA-4. If you set them mismatched, then you may get datacorruption. Just a word of warning.

pavera · Tux's lil' helper Joined: 27 May 2002 Posts: 84

does your IDE controller support dma?
furthermore, is the controller driver compiled into the kernel?
I had some problems with hdparm because I just took the default IDE/ATA settings in the kernel config, and it didn't have my specific controller compiled in, so all the special stuff the controller can do, it couldn't cause it was running on a generic driver.
(IE its an ata udma 66 controller, but it would only do 33, if I turned it up to 66 it would hang the machine).
upon compiling the driver for the controller in, I can crank it up to 66, and get 30+MBps of throughput..

Roderik · n00b Joined: 06 Jun 2002 Posts: 55 Location: Belgium

since i get

rukhoven · Posted: Thu Jun 13, 2002 5:39 pm Post subject:

On the hdparm settings:

I addidtionally use -u1 which is apperently for Interrupt unmasking and should (according to diverse sources I once Googled up) help considerably in a desktop system.

thus: hdparm -u1 -d1 -c1 -a1 -m16 /dev/hd??
it is for me. Funnily, Gentoo and the kernel I made for it, detect all those thing automagically for me and my athlon system. So all's set "out of the box"
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bidz · n00b Joined: 08 Jun 2002 Posts: 54 Location: Norway

TheWart · Posted: Wed Jun 19, 2002 1:42 am Post subject:

hmm, i think that the newer ide cards/drivers can get automatically adjusted by gentoo to reach their maximum performance, but not some of the older ide controllers
_________________
Face it, we are all noobs.

On the box it said it was designed for Win XP or better, so why won't it work with Linux?

Marauder · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Posts: 3 Location: Au

Looks like it's automagically set for me too....

bash-2.05a# /sbin/hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.44 seconds =292.91 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.66 seconds = 38.65 MB/sec

bash-2.05a# /sbin/hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.44 seconds =292.24 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 2.52 seconds = 25.43 MB/sec

Fear my speed demons :twisted:

strife · n00b Joined: 14 Jun 2002 Posts: 22

When I do hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda and try to do the test, total system lockup. No keyboard/network/anything.

DMA is turned on in the kernel.

Now, under Mandrake this did not happen, the other strange thing is that when I try to turn DMA on on the DVD drive or CD-ROM the DMA setting resets to off after I do the test. Even when -k 1 is used.

alan · n00b Joined: 24 Jun 2002 Posts: 8

KiTaSuMbA · Guru Joined: 28 Jun 2002 Posts: 430 Location: Naples Italy

Funny: hda was DMA on from the very begining (I checked it when I first got gentoo installed) so I did not bother checking the rest of hdparam stuff. Reading this post gave me another push to go check in detail and - guess what? - hdb was off.

You might also try the -u 1 option (turn unmasking on), I've found it very helpful on heavy disk IOs when a bunch of different progs all try to write and read from the very same disk. :cool:

Also a tip:
to turn DMA on, you must compile support for your MoBo's chipset in your kernel, not just the generic "use DMA when available" option.

and a big
WARNING:
the -X option to specifically define a DMA mode can get you in trouble: if you push harder the disk than its actual DMA capability you might corrupt it. Be sure you *know* what the DMA mode of both the disk and your mobo is - don't suppose. Another point can be made that by testing a couple of DMA 66 disks on a friend's computer produced better results by just -d1 (the system drives the disk at the speed the disk determines) instead of determining specific DMA mode by the -X option.
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arkane · l33t Joined: 30 Apr 2002 Posts: 918 Location: Phoenix, AZ

I use a full line of stuff in mine, just to make sure everything is setup. (it wasn't originally..)
/sbin/hdparm -q -m 16 -q -a 1 -q -c 1 -q -u 1 -q -d 1 -X69 /dev/hda

I have a Western Digital WD1200JB (120gig 8mb cache EIDE Udma-100)
/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.55 seconds =232.73 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.44 seconds = 44.44 MB/sec

J0rd · n00b Joined: 09 Jul 2002 Posts: 19 Location: @home

with all the tweaks i managed to squeeze another 1MB/sec outa my HD!

pfft =)

but this is really important for people who dont have DMA enabled by default.

Here are my times on one of them new Maxtor 40GB ATA-133@ -X 69

j0rd root # hdparm -Tt /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 0.64 seconds =200.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.60 seconds = 40.00 MB/sec

look at them nice round numbers. You would think that i have an imac HardDrive or something =)

post speed and flags, im looking for a new harddrive to buy. i wanna see some RAID / SCSI speeds too, so i can see if its worth Upgrading.
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J0rd · n00b Joined: 09 Jul 2002 Posts: 19 Location: @home

ledents · n00b Joined: 15 Jul 2002 Posts: 7

For dos to Unix conversion I think the tr command is simpler:

mikki · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2002 Posts: 51 Location: On Top

delta407 · Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2002 5:47 am Post subject:

mikki · n00b Joined: 14 Jul 2002 Posts: 51 Location: On Top

Jinx, owe me a Coke!
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rac · Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2002 7:49 am Post subject:

I use

Shak · Posted: Fri Jul 26, 2002 5:46 pm Post subject:

After I applied those tweaks: