5 mb/sec on an IDE drive. Is that ok?

[fsvara]

I just tried hdparm -t /dev/hda and /dev/hdb (both IDE drives) and they both returned something around 5 mb/sec.

I have enabled the 32 bit mode for the drives. Hdparm -d1 /dev/hda didn't work, however. It said 'HDIO_SET_DMA: failed. Operation not allowed' on 2.4.0 and it just crashed on my 2.2.17 kernel.
Does this mean my harddisk propably doesn't support this?

So with the hdparm defaults, except for 32 bit mode, I got 5 mb/sec. This seems slow to me, or is it normal for an IDE drive?

[milanuk]

I usually do '/sbin/hdparm -c1 -d1 -k1 /dev/hda' This takes this drive from about 3MB/s (default) to 19-20MB/s. And that is about as good as that drive gets. My other one, default is somewhere around _1_ MB/s, and the above settings net me about 3MB/s tops. I would recommend reading the man page for hdparm. I think there is a flag like '-i' that will give you some more information on a given drive, but I can't remember right now. I would also recommend you stay _away_ from the '-X' settings -- my hard drive started doing weird things that I don't ever want to see it do again. All kinds of errors.

Monte

[MBMarduk]

fsvara, yes, that IS normal...
for a PIO/4 (DMA2 - i think it's the predecesor to UDMA/33) drive that is.

[Luthor]

If you compiled your own kernel, you might want to see my comments here:
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/Forum1/HTML/014090.html

Hope this helps...



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Luthor St. James
(aka [AcK]BillTheCat)

[godot]

is it true that linux has problems enabling DMA on Western Digital drives? I've been trying hdparm -d1 /dev/hd_ for my three WD drives:, a, b, and c. a is an old 3 gigger but can do DMA, b is a year old 18GB 7200 RPM Enterprise drive, and c is a new 30 GB drive. I only get about 3 MB/s from them and whenever i to hdpar -d1 is says it can't enable DMA.

[vvx]

Alie:/home/vvx# hdparm -t /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 1.81 seconds = 35.36 MB/sec
http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

[mindwarp]

Which kind of drive do you have? My maxtor 7200 20gig on hits 19mb/s

[fsvara]

Here's what hdparm -i /dev/hda said. It's talking about a pretty new drive with quite a high rpm rate that does only 5mb/sec:

/dev/hda:

Model=IBM-DTLA-307030, FwRev=TX4OA50C, SerialNo=YK0YK024757
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=40
BuffType=3(DualPortCache), BuffSize=1916kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
DblWordIO=no, OldPIO=2, DMA=yes, OldDMA=2
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=60036480
tDMA={min:120,rec:120}, DMA modes: mword0 mword1 *mword2
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, PIO modes: mode3 mode4
UDMA modes: mode0 mode1 mode2 mode3 mode4 mode5
Drive Supports : Reserved : ATA-2 ATA-3 ATA-4 ATA-5

I think it says it supports Ultra DMA. It dow, right? But hdparm -d1 /dev/hda doesn't work, it says:
'HDIO_SET_DMA: failed. Operation not allowed.'
Does this mean that my Ultra DMA on my harddisk is not supported in Linux?

[milanuk]

Dunno. I quit fscking w/ my drives a while back, due to lack of results. The only thing that pops to mind is maybe you have to enable 32bit i/o first? i.e. /sbin/hdparm -c1 -d1 ? If you've already been doing that, then I'd recommend you search Deja for stuff on the IBM DTLA drives (since that seems to be what you have). Maybe this has been addressed already. I was under the impression that the IBM drives were pretty solid stuff, especially the DTLA ones. Is it ATA-100? Maybe you need a kernel patch? Just guessing here, no real idea.

Sorry,

Monte

[Luthor]

If you read the thread I posted earlier, you will see that some options must be compiled into the kernel to achieve DMA and chipset tuning (PIIXn anyway). If DMA support is not compiled in, you will not be able to use hdparm to enable it and you will get the errors you are getting.




------------------
Luthor St. James
(aka [AcK]BillTheCat)

[cs25x]

i had exactly the same problem, 5M default, enable DMA & 32 bits got me way up to 8M, Quantum fireball. Seagates stopped at 5M,
they all gave timeout errors.
The seagates are all current models. The fireball is an old 4G thing.

MOTHERBOARD GA-5SMM sis 530 chipset.
This board has a 133Mhz max bus.

Compiled 2.4 kernel turned on options, result outstanding, 7M on the fireball. Went back to 2.2.18.

Bought a secondhand MB, 1998 vintage pcpartner MVP3/4 with 100Mhz bus, plugged in the HD and fired it up using 2.2.18.

RESULT:::::::::::: 14.47M

Both boards run award bios, and to the best of my ability they were both set up properly.
SO, no it is not the best you can expect, junk your mb and try another with a chipset that has a body of support. I wont bother using the GA again, crud like that is destined for running windows.

Oh, order in which you enable your hdparm options is not relevant. Setting DMA can cause a crash, there is a warning about enabling it on the man page.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000

[Coral Sea]

I get ~23 MB/sec on my Maxtor 7200 RPM 27 GB HD and ~35 MB/sec on my IBM 7200 RPM 45 GB HD. (Quite a difference between IBM and Maxtor!) The IBM is the slave.

Runnig a Tyan Trinity 400 Rel. D mobo, 733 P3 133 o/c to 150, 256 MB 133 RAM. http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/smile.gif

------------------
Visit my Web Site at http://members.home.net/2826651556/

[bleg26]

I had problems getting UDMA working. Problem was is the drive is UDMA100 and controller is UDMA66. I d/l a utility to put the drive in UDMA66 mode. Works fine now.
<edit>
Forgot to mention...If you have a second non-UDMA66/100 or CD-ROM or both, Put the UDMA66/100 drive alone on the Primary Controller. Put other HD and CD-ROM on secondary controller. Can't mix UDMA66/100, UDMA33, PIO, etc. on the same controller.

[This message has been edited by bleg26 (edited 17 January 2001).]

[fsvara]

Yeah, it wasn't enabled in the kernel. However recompiling the kernel with support for it didn't really change anything:

With my new kernel I ran 'hdparm -c1 -d1 /dev/hda'. No error messages, this time. Everything seemed to work fine.
I ran 'hdparm /dev/hda' for a check. Both DMA and 32 bit were enabled. Then I did a 'hdparm -t /dev/hda'... it still was at 5mb!!!

Again, I issued a 'hdparm /dev/hda', and now only 32 bit was enabled anymore!
DMA had somehow been disbled!!!

This really starts getting on my nerves. The problem is I don't know exactly what my chipset is, I plugged the harddisks just into the motherboard, not any controller card or such... I didn't know I knew so few about IDE http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/wink.gif.

And all these fscking acronyms. WhyTF do they have to have about 3 acronyms for every standard?

Anyway, browsing the IBM page I found out that my hd supports ATA/100. Don't know what it means, though. When I bought it I only looked for UDMA, rotation speed ,the capacity and good price. Bought it in http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif Akihabara http://www.linuxnewbie.org/ubb/cool.gif, the HDs are SOOOO cheap there!