Very Computer

Hi all (again),

I'm trying to squeeze as much juice out of my system as possible.
I checked out the product specs for my hd and motherboards (see below) and
they both support udma 100.  Now I'm not sure if the current 2.4 kernels
do.  Anyway, upon bootup I see that my drive uses UDMA(66).  Firstly, is
there anyway of getting hdparm to report this info?  All I can get from hdparm
is that it uses udma (but dont know how to find out which udma).

Also, when I run -Tt tests I can only get bout 30mb/s for the buffered disk reads.  I was under
the impression that udma 66 gives about 66mb/s.  What gives??  Is my drive really using
udma 66 or is it just using udma 33?  Is there anyway to use udma 100??

Here are the various stats:

$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.95 seconds =134.74 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.91 seconds =140.66 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

$ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.90 seconds =142.22 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

Also, drive stats from hdparm:

$ sudo hdparm  /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 3736/255/63, sectors = 60030432, start = 0

$ sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=aMtxro5 03374H                          , FwRev=AJ6CH10U, SerialNo=4F30YNC3
 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=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 udma0 udma1 udma2
 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

My system specs are:
RH71
kernel 2.4.14
hdparm 4.1-3

655MB pc133
Duron 700
Maxtor Diamond plus 45 (30GB)
Biostar m7vkb mobo

Thanks guys,
Hilkiah

Quote:>I'm trying to squeeze as much juice out of my system as possible.

Quote:>I checked out the product specs for my hd and motherboards (see below)
>and they both support udma 100.  Now I'm not sure if the current 2.4
>kernels do.  Anyway, upon bootup I see that my drive uses UDMA(66).
>Firstly, is there anyway of getting hdparm to report this info?  All I
>can get from hdparm is that it uses udma (but dont know how to find out
>which udma).

Quote:>Also, when I run -Tt tests I can only get bout 30mb/s for the buffered
>disk reads.  I was under the impression that udma 66 gives about
>66mb/s.  What gives??  Is my drive really using udma 66 or is it just
>using udma 33?  Is there anyway to use udma 100??

UDMA/{33,66,100} is the speed of the *interface*, while the bottleneck
with current hard disks is the speed at which you can get data from the
*head-disk-assembly*.  Right now, a 15000 RPM 80G SCSI disk can deliver
about 50M/s from its head-disk assembly.  Consumer-level IDE equipment
tends to run at 7200 RPM (or 5400!) and consequently has lower
throughput.  An IBM-DTLA-307045 45G 7200RPM hard disk on a UDMA/66
interface puts out roughly 34M/s according to hdparm -Tt.  No IDE disk
that I'm aware of can even saturate a /66 channel, let alone a /100.
This capacity is there for future disks that will spin at 30000 RPM or
something.

Also, note that IDE devices are brain-damaged in that only one device on
a channel can use the channel at any time.  SCSI is not like that, so if
you have a U160 SCSI interface and several drives in RAID-5 or RAID-0+1,
you can get some *serious* throughput on disk reads.  IDE RAID is
similar, though you can have only one disk on each channel for max.
throughput, and that gets really annoying.

--
Matt G|There is no Darkness in Eternity/But only Light too dim for us to see
Brainbench MVP for Linux Admin /
http://www.brainbench.com     /  "He is a rhythmic movement of the
-----------------------------/    penguins, is Tux." --MegaHAL

It's been a while since I last messed with hdparm, but run 'man hdparm'
to see how which switches do what. If your HDD doesn't explicitly
support UMDA 100, it would not be smart to set hdparm to use it.

Rarely (never, actually) will you see your actual performance reach the
theoretical maximum. 30 can probably be beat, though.

Best,

--Imad "(e)magius" Hussain
_____________________________________________________________________
"I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object
 to power without constructive purpose."

 -- Spock to Trelane, "The Squire of Gothos"
______________________________________________________________________

There is a * next to udma4.
Does this mean that I'm using UDMA100?

My disk is an IBM 7200rpm DPTA-372730 yet I consistenly only get around
20MB/s for buffered reads. This seems a bit slow to me, considering what
has been said in previous posts.

I have dma set to on (my settings are the same as that given by the
original poster in the output from plain hdparm).

Also, with dma off it is v. slow - around 3MB/s. So why is dma set to off
by default? [ I switch it on in boot.local ]

Using Suse 7.2 (kernel 2.4.4)

--
Tim
=+=

Rog.

Quote:

> Hi all (again),

> I'm trying to squeeze as much juice out of my system as possible.
> I checked out the product specs for my hd and motherboards (see below) and
> they both support udma 100.  Now I'm not sure if the current 2.4 kernels
> do.  Anyway, upon bootup I see that my drive uses UDMA(66).  Firstly, is
> there anyway of getting hdparm to report this info?  All I can get from
hdparm
> is that it uses udma (but dont know how to find out which udma).

> Also, when I run -Tt tests I can only get bout 30mb/s for the buffered

Quote:> the impression that udma 66 gives about 66mb/s.  What gives??  Is my drive
really using
> udma 66 or is it just using udma 33?  Is there anyway to use udma 100??

> Here are the various stats:

> $ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

> /dev/hda:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.95 seconds =134.74 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

> $ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

> /dev/hda:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.91 seconds =140.66 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

> $ sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

> /dev/hda:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.90 seconds =142.22 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.04 seconds = 31.37 MB/sec

> Also, drive stats from hdparm:

> $ sudo hdparm  /dev/hda

> /dev/hda:
>  multcount    = 16 (on)
>  I/O support  =  1 (32-bit)
>  unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
>  using_dma    =  1 (on)
>  keepsettings =  0 (off)
>  nowerr       =  0 (off)
>  readonly     =  0 (off)
>  readahead    =  8 (on)
>  geometry     = 3736/255/63, sectors = 60030432, start = 0

> $ sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda

> /dev/hda:

>  Model=aMtxro5 03374H                          , FwRev=AJ6CH10U,
SerialNo=4F30YNC3
>  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=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 udma0 udma1 udma2
>  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

> My system specs are:
> RH71
> kernel 2.4.14
> hdparm 4.1-3

> 655MB pc133
> Duron 700
> Maxtor Diamond plus 45 (30GB)
> Biostar m7vkb mobo

> Thanks guys,
> Hilkiah

Still get only 20MB/s with dma in udma4 mode though. :(

--
Tim
=+=

If you are trying to get more performance, messing with hdparm is now
_almost_ certainly a waste of time.

The exceptions are where the driver has a controller/drive combo in a black
list, and you know why, and why it is safe to enable the DMA driver for
this drive.

Rob

Quote:>  DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2

Another thing 4.1 does is send errors to log without echoing to screen.

Andy.

Andy.