Slow harddisk

Slow harddisk

[Ng Pek Yong]

I have 2 Maxtor 5T060H6 HD (60G each), attached to a Promise FastTrak 100 
TX2.

I am using the Promise card as a dumb IDE controller card. 
I run Linux's built-in RAID on the 2 drives (RAID1). 
The OS version is 2.4.7-10 (RedHat 7.2)

The problem is that I have exceptionally slow HD performance, despite
playing around w/ hdparm.

Here's how it look like

-------------------------------
 hdparm  -iv /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  3 (32-bit w/sync)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 119150/16/63, sectors = 120103200, start = 0

 Model=Maxtor 5T060H6, FwRev=TAH71DP0, SerialNo=T6HM013C
 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=120103200
 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 udma3 udma4 *udma5 
 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 

--------------------------------

hdparm -tT /dev/hde


/dev/hde:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  0.50 seconds =256.00 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in 18.46 seconds =  3.47 MB/sec

--------------------------------


As u can see, my buffered disk read is maxed out at 3.5MB/sec.
I have tweaked with -c, -m, -u, -d, -X etc, to no avail.

Any idea if it is  RAID1, the Maxtor HD or the Promise card the cause for 
the slowdown?



Thanks,
-PY


----------------------------------

Other info:

cat /proc/cpuinfo 
processor       : 0
vendor_id       : AuthenticAMD
cpu family      : 6
model           : 6
model name      : AMD Athlon(tm) XP 1500+
stepping        : 2
cpu MHz         : 1333.420
cache size      : 256 KB
fdiv_bug        : no
hlt_bug         : no
f00f_bug        : no
coma_bug        : no
fpu             : yes
fpu_exception   : yes
cpuid level     : 1
wp              : yes
flags           : fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca 
cmov pat pse36 mmx fxsr sse syscall mmxext 3dnowext 3dnow
bogomips        : 2660.76

# cat /proc/meminfo 
        total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  525709312 276729856 248979456  2166784 78929920 109309952
Swap: 1083760640        0 1083760640
MemTotal:       513388 kB
MemFree:        243144 kB
MemShared:        2116 kB
Buffers:         77080 kB
Cached:         106748 kB
SwapCached:          0 kB
Active:          32960 kB
Inact_dirty:    152984 kB
Inact_clean:         0 kB
Inact_target:     3172 kB
HighTotal:           0 kB
HighFree:            0 kB
LowTotal:       513388 kB
LowFree:        243144 kB
SwapTotal:     1058360 kB
SwapFree:      1058360 kB
NrSwapPages:    264590 pages

Re: Slow harddisk

[DervishD]

    Hi, Ng :))

> I/O support  =  3 (32-bit w/sync)

    Try w/o sync

> using_dma    =  0 (off)

    Enable dma

    This should increase the speed to normal levels.

    Raúl

Re: Slow harddisk

[Ng Pek Yong]

On Thu, 9 May 2002, DervishD wrote:

>     Hi, Ng :))
> 
> > I/O support  =  3 (32-bit w/sync)
> 
>     Try w/o sync
> 
> > using_dma    =  0 (off)
> 
>     Enable dma
> 
>     This should increase the speed to normal levels.
> 
>     Raúl
> 

It got worse ;)

(note: I can;t get dma to work; see below)

# hdparm -X69 -d1 -u1 -c1 -m16 /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
 setting 32-bit I/O support flag to 1
 setting multcount to 16
 setting unmaskirq to 1 (on)
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
 setting xfermode to 69 (UltraDMA mode5)
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  0 (off)
[root@lal root]# hdparm  -Tt /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
 Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  2.12 seconds = 60.38 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in 24.37 seconds =  2.63 MB/sec

Re: Slow harddisk

[Bill Davidsen]

On Thu, 9 May 2002, Ng Pek Yong wrote:

> It got worse ;)
> 
> (note: I can;t get dma to work; see below)
> 
> # hdparm -X69 -d1 -u1 -c1 -m16 /dev/hde
> 
> /dev/hde:
>  setting 32-bit I/O support flag to 1
>  setting multcount to 16
>  setting unmaskirq to 1 (on)
>  setting using_dma to 1 (on)
>  HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Operation not permitted
>  setting xfermode to 69 (UltraDMA mode5)
>  multcount    = 16 (on)
>  I/O support  =  1 (32-bit)
>  unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
>  using_dma    =  0 (off)
> [root@lal root]# hdparm  -Tt /dev/hde

Time to investigate why DMA doesn't work, rather than spending time trying
to run without it. Did you build your kernel with DMA in the IDE part, by
default, and enable chip specific features? I suspect the chipset is not
being DMA enbled, as was the case when I had a similar issue.

-- 
bill davidsen <davidsen@tmr.com>
  CTO, TMR Associates, Inc
Doing interesting things with little computers since 1979.