Re: Speeding up hard disk drive

On Mon, 16 Jul 2007 17:38:05 +0100, Nuno J. Silva wrote:

I've a Maxtor 51536U3 disk (PATA , 15GB) in a Celeron Coppermine
computer, and it is working under udma4.



/dev/hda:

Model=Maxtor 51536U3, FwRev=DAC10SC0, SerialNo=K30CGKLC 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=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=30015216
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
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 *udma4 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled
(255) WriteCache=enabled Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D
revision 0: ATA/ATAPI-1
ATA/ATAPI-2 ATA/ATAPI-3 ATA/ATAPI-4 ATA/ATAPI-5 ATA/ATAPI-6

* signifies the current active mode


The only information I was able to get online about the disk speed is:

# INTERNAL DATA TRANSFER RATE : 346 MBIT/S # EXTERNAL DATA TRANSFER RATE
: 66.7 MBPS

(Source:
<http://www.serversupply.com/MAXTOR/HARD%20DRIVES/ATA%20-%
20IDE/15GB-7200RPM/51536U3.htm>)


And dma is enabled:

root@3[~]# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 1 (on)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 29777/16/63, sectors = 30015216, start = 0



But the disk is *really* slow:

root@3[~]# hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 256 MB in 2.01 seconds = 127.33 MB/sec Timing
buffered disk reads: 2 MB in 32.42 seconds = 63.17 kB/sec


What's wrong here?

That sounds like a very sick drive. Have you checked the SMART status?
.

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