IDE is still crap.. or something

IDE is still crap.. or something

[Martin Eriksson]

Well, just wanted to tell you that 2.4.15 still slows down to a crawl when
copying a 500MB file between two hard drives (running ext3). I have tried
any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.

Even iptables is affected, because it takes forever to surf the internet
from my behind-linux-firewall windows computer.

I'm right now trying to apply the preemptive-kernel patch to 2.4.15 but it
had some strange rejects so it will be exciting to see if it works. I get
good response from the -ac kernel series though.

_____________________________________________________
|  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
|  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
|  Umeå University, Sweden

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[Marcelo Tosatti]

Any previous kernel gave you good performance ? 

On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:

> Well, just wanted to tell you that 2.4.15 still slows down to a crawl when
> copying a 500MB file between two hard drives (running ext3). I have tried
> any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
> patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.
> 
> Even iptables is affected, because it takes forever to surf the internet
> from my behind-linux-firewall windows computer.
> 
> I'm right now trying to apply the preemptive-kernel patch to 2.4.15 but it
> had some strange rejects so it will be exciting to see if it works. I get
> good response from the -ac kernel series though.
> 
> _____________________________________________________
> |  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
> |  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
> |  Umeå University, Sweden
> 
> 
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
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> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
> 

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[Martin Eriksson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Marcelo Tosatti" <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>
To: "Martin Eriksson" <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
Cc: "lkml" <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 7:27 PM
Subject: Re: IDE is still crap.. or something


>
> Any previous kernel gave you good performance ?

No.. not really. Except -ac kernels and kernels with the preempt patch.

I'll just clarify: The problem is not that hard disk operations gets slow (I
can understand *that*, as it's a MW-DMA2 disk and one UDMA33 running ext3),
instead the real problem is that the system as a *whole* gets painfully
slow. Whilst copying a 500MB file, it takes ~6-8 seconds to start a new ssh
session from my windows comp to my linux server, compared to <1 second when
running preempt/ac kernels.

_____________________________________________________
|  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
|  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
|  Umeå University, Sweden

>
> On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:
>
> > Well, just wanted to tell you that 2.4.15 still slows down to a crawl
when
> > copying a 500MB file between two hard drives (running ext3). I have
tried
> > any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
> > patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.
> >
> > Even iptables is affected, because it takes forever to surf the internet
> > from my behind-linux-firewall windows computer.
> >
> > I'm right now trying to apply the preemptive-kernel patch to 2.4.15 but
it
> > had some strange rejects so it will be exciting to see if it works. I
get
> > good response from the -ac kernel series though.

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[Andre Hedrick]

On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:

> > > any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
> > > patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.

Mr. Martin Eriksson,

As for your subject -- "IDE" died a long time ago, but since it died
before you entered university, I am not at all surprized.  Now as for
jumping on the case of the talented Mr. Marcelo Tosatti.  He has not found
it neccessary to enter university at this time, as he could likely teach
the content scheduled in the next year to you.

Why are you doing thoughtless things like overriding the ruleset for
optimizing the HOST/Device pair?  I seriously doubt that you know the
history of those option?  Of the lot, one of them is retired as of ATA-2;
however it still is optional for a while.  The other is foolish in most
cases unless dealing with ATA-2 hardware, or have audio driver problems.
The next is settable by the kernel if you allow it to do the work for you.
The last is also set by the kernel, should you allow it to operate.  There
is no valid reason for you to do anything w/ hdparm.

Now this is a global reply to your list of rants.  Now if you can not
merge patches and understand what is going on, then please keep the noise
down.  Next time please have some credablity when you attempt to make
grand pontifications of code quality in Linux.  Lastly you were not to be
a target for everyones entertainment but this is where you have come.

Regards,

Andre Hedrick
Linux ATA Development
Linux Disk Certification Project

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[Martin Eriksson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Andre Hedrick" <andre@linux-ide.org>
To: "Martin Eriksson" <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
Cc: "Marcelo Tosatti" <marcelo@conectiva.com.br>; "lkml"
<linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Saturday, November 24, 2001 8:06 AM
Subject: Re: IDE is still crap.. or something


> On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:
>
> > > > any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14
IDE
> > > > patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.
>
> Mr. Martin Eriksson,
>
> As for your subject -- "IDE" died a long time ago, but since it died
> before you entered university, I am not at all surprized.  Now as for
> jumping on the case of the talented Mr. Marcelo Tosatti.  He has not found
> it neccessary to enter university at this time, as he could likely teach
> the content scheduled in the next year to you.
>
> Why are you doing thoughtless things like overriding the ruleset for
> optimizing the HOST/Device pair?  I seriously doubt that you know the
> history of those option?  Of the lot, one of them is retired as of ATA-2;
> however it still is optional for a while.  The other is foolish in most
> cases unless dealing with ATA-2 hardware, or have audio driver problems.
> The next is settable by the kernel if you allow it to do the work for you.
> The last is also set by the kernel, should you allow it to operate.  There
> is no valid reason for you to do anything w/ hdparm.

Well, actually I'm not the "must-use-hdparm -c1 -u1 -d1 -m16 -W1 -X66" kind
of guy... I just tested some options because my system was slow. I do not
run hdparm now, and everything works fine (with your ATA patch, and the
preempt patch). I'm moving the hard disks to the "on-board" controller
(PIIX) today, to see if that works better (without preempt+ata).

Also, I *would* be upgrading my linux system *if I had money*, but until
then, I happily run with my crappy BP6, crappy HD's and crappy HPT366
controller.

> Now this is a global reply to your list of rants.  Now if you can not
> merge patches and understand what is going on, then please keep the noise
> down.  Next time please have some credablity when you attempt to make
> grand pontifications of code quality in Linux.  Lastly you were not to be
> a target for everyones entertainment but this is where you have come.

I'm sorry if the subject set you off.. what I should have written is
propably "ATA hard disk access slows down my system", but I was tired and
had previously been reading "comp.sys.ibm.pc.games.space-sim".

Also, I'm not meaning to sound important or anything with my sig. Maybe I
should change it? Hmm...

>
> Regards,
>
> Andre Hedrick
> Linux ATA Development
> Linux Disk Certification Project

_____________________________________________________
|  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
|  Linux developer / Ignorant excuse for a human /
|  Ranting bastard / Swede

ATA is not crap. Propably.

[Martin Eriksson]

Sorry everyone I've upset.

The problem *seems* to be with my hard disks. Apparently both advertises
udma2 capability but neither is capable?? When I run the disks on my
"on-board" controller, I get a DMA timeout and the system comes to a halt
(well only the HD activity, but you can't do much without access to the
root/usr partition). When running on my HPT366 controller, I don't get the
timeouts, but I do get the "slow responding system" at about the same time
at which I get the timeouts on the PIIX4 controller. Problem comes when
having copied about 11% of a 500'000'000 byte file from /dev/hdc7 to
/dev/hda6...

The hard disks in question are models
hda: ST36451A
hdc: Maxtor 91152D8

The reason why I moved to the HPT366 controller in the first place, was
because the onboard controller / BIOS? messed up the C/H/S values on one of
the hard disks. Cannot be 100% sure though as this was a while ago (two
years?).

_____________________________________________________
|  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
|  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
|  Umeå University, Sweden

Re: ATA is not crap. Propably.

[Andre Hedrick]

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Martin,

PIIX4 AB/EB is a broken hardware mess.
HPT366 is another issue.
The newest driver should improve things but the latest unreleased fixes a
basic design error introduced some time ago by an unknown patch.  This has
been found and fixed.  Just need to find an ungreased turkey first to
test.

Regards,

Andre Hedrick
Linux ATA Development

On Sat, 24 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:

> Sorry everyone I've upset.
> 
> The problem *seems* to be with my hard disks. Apparently both advertises
> udma2 capability but neither is capable?? When I run the disks on my
> "on-board" controller, I get a DMA timeout and the system comes to a halt
> (well only the HD activity, but you can't do much without access to the
> root/usr partition). When running on my HPT366 controller, I don't get the
> timeouts, but I do get the "slow responding system" at about the same time
> at which I get the timeouts on the PIIX4 controller. Problem comes when
> having copied about 11% of a 500'000'000 byte file from /dev/hdc7 to
> /dev/hda6...
> 
> The hard disks in question are models
> hda: ST36451A
> hdc: Maxtor 91152D8
> 
> The reason why I moved to the HPT366 controller in the first place, was
> because the onboard controller / BIOS? messed up the C/H/S values on one of
> the hard disks. Cannot be 100% sure though as this was a while ago (two
> years?).
> 
> _____________________________________________________
> |  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
> |  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
> |  Umeå University, Sweden
> 
> 

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[Martin Eriksson]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Eriksson" <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
To: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 8:11 PM
Subject: IDE is still crap.. or something


> Well, just wanted to tell you that 2.4.15 still slows down to a crawl when
> copying a 500MB file between two hard drives (running ext3). I have tried
> any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
> patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.
>
> Even iptables is affected, because it takes forever to surf the internet
> from my behind-linux-firewall windows computer.
>
> I'm right now trying to apply the preemptive-kernel patch to 2.4.15 but it
> had some strange rejects so it will be exciting to see if it works. I get
> good response from the -ac kernel series though.

I applied the ide patch and the preemptive-kernel patch, and so far so good.
Response is up again, but I'm not sure how well I fixed the .rej files.
There were some reference to a "still_running" label that I simply
ignored... *shrug*

Btw, i run my (pretty slow) hard disks on my BP6 HPT366 controller.

_____________________________________________________
|  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
|  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
|  Umeå University, Sweden

Re: IDE is still crap.. or something

[listmail]

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[-- Attachment #1: Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=X-UNKNOWN, Size: 1721 bytes --]

Just as an FYI...I am not seeing this on my ht366...runs nice and
speedy...

On Fri, 23 Nov 2001, Martin Eriksson wrote:

> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Martin Eriksson" <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
> To: <linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org>
> Sent: Friday, November 23, 2001 8:11 PM
> Subject: IDE is still crap.. or something
>
>
> > Well, just wanted to tell you that 2.4.15 still slows down to a crawl when
> > copying a 500MB file between two hard drives (running ext3). I have tried
> > any of the -c -u -m -W settings in hdparm. I even applied the 2.4.14 IDE
> > patch (after fixing the rejects) but no go.
> >
> > Even iptables is affected, because it takes forever to surf the internet
> > from my behind-linux-firewall windows computer.
> >
> > I'm right now trying to apply the preemptive-kernel patch to 2.4.15 but it
> > had some strange rejects so it will be exciting to see if it works. I get
> > good response from the -ac kernel series though.
>
> I applied the ide patch and the preemptive-kernel patch, and so far so good.
> Response is up again, but I'm not sure how well I fixed the .rej files.
> There were some reference to a "still_running" label that I simply
> ignored... *shrug*
>
> Btw, i run my (pretty slow) hard disks on my BP6 HPT366 controller.
>
> _____________________________________________________
> |  Martin Eriksson <nitrax@giron.wox.org>
> |  MSc CSE student, department of Computing Science
> |  Umeå University, Sweden
>
>
> -
> To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in
> the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org
> More majordomo info at  http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html
> Please read the FAQ at  http://www.tux.org/lkml/
>