I forgot where I saw the hdparm thing, so I am posting this here. I attempted to run hdparm and it could not be found, even though it is installed.

I got looking around and found a text file in /etc/sysconfig called harddisks or hardisks. This contains the things for tuning your HDDs.

If you find that your HDDs are running on the slow side, like in Enterprise Kernel, all you need to do is uncomment 2 lines to get things running much faster:

The line for DMA access and the line for 32 bit access. Save and reboot.

You do have to be root to do this.

When you reboot, mandrake will set the parameters for all of your hard disks.


Edit: moved from Hardware by spinynorman

if you couldn't find hdparm then either you were not root, or something is seriously wrong. Uninstall it>reinstall it.

Funny it couldn't find hdparm...you did try hdparm as root, right?

I hate to reboot and haven't in months. No need to reboot to enable DMA. As root just do:

# hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda (or whatever drive)

That will enable DMA on the fly.

Then edit line in /etc/sysconfig/hardisks that sets DMA (must be like this):

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda

where '1' is enabled, '0' is disabled (i.e. slow). This ensures DMA is enabled when you do reboot without having to manually enable it again.

As for enabling 32-bit support, it may not always be a good idea 'cause it can actually slow a system down slightly. 32-bit is only needed for data transfers across a PCI or VLB bus to an interface card, standard ribbon connections will still be 16 bit. Read the section on the '-c' variable in 'man hdparm' before you do.

BTW, you can also set HD standby times manually, or at boot in /etc/sysconfig/hardisks by adding entries like this:

# For setting standby time:
hdparm -S 242 /dev/hda
hdparm -S 241 /dev/hdb
hdparm -S 241 /dev/hdd

No need to leave all those drives running all the time. 'man hdparm' explains the time settings (the '24*' numbers).

I don't think I was root trying to run hdparm.... DUH!

Anyways, what I did, works like a charm. This system is now purring like a kitten.