iphitus Posted June 18, 2004 Report Share Posted June 18, 2004 Here are a few usefull commands that can get you a bit more hard drive performance. Use at your own risk DMA Many distros are pretty conservative and leave DMA turned off, this can be enabled with the following command as root. hdparm -d1 /dev/hdX Replacing hdX with the hard drive, usually hda if you only have one hard drive. 32 bit access Again many distros leave this turned off and the hard drive in 16 bit. To make it run in 32 bit mode run the following command as root. hdparm -c1 /dev/hdX Again replacing hdX with the hard drive. IDE block mode Unless your hard drive is very old you can enable IDE block mode. To discover if your had drive supports this, run the following command as root. hdparm -i /dev/hdX Again replacing hdX with the hard drive. Look for the value MaxMultiSect and enter the following hdparm -m 16 /dev/hdX Again replacing hdX with the hard drive and replacing 16 with the value of MaxMultiSect. Testing differences To test and see how much difference these commands made run the following command as root before and after the above commands to compare results. hdparm -tT /dev/hdX Again replacing hdX with the hard drive. If any of this blows up your computer, makes your hands self combust, chair dissapears, mouse imp[lodes, keyboard melts, it's not my fault. None of the above happened to me on my computer :) FAQ team: reckon I could put this as a FAQ somewhere? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest netstar Posted June 22, 2004 Report Share Posted June 22, 2004 To add to iphitus' disclaimer: Chaging hard disk access to a mode unsupported by your drive is DANGEROUS. Please check the specifications of your drive before changing drive access modes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrewski Posted July 15, 2004 Report Share Posted July 15, 2004 I just came across this command in the Gentoo installation handbook. My first question, after I noticed that even the conservative settings it offered me helped my drive, was, "How do I set that permanently/on startup?" How do I set that permanently/on startup? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AussieJohn Posted July 15, 2004 Report Share Posted July 15, 2004 I have two identical WD 80Gb 8mb cache HDDs. I did the setting routine suggested on hdc and then the test at the end. I did the test only, on my hda and the results were near enough the same. Sure the hdc results appear a little better but is that gain really significant ???. dev/hdc: Timing buffer-cache reads: 1924 MB in 2.00 seconds = 960.23 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 132 MB in 3.01 seconds = 43.82 MB/sec /dev/hda: Timing buffer-cache reads: 1860 MB in 2.00 seconds = 928.75 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 136 MB in 3.03 seconds = 44.92 MB/sec This is the result of running the settings in hda and then doing the test again, /dev/hda: Timing buffer-cache reads: 1896 MB in 2.00 seconds = 947.20 MB/sec Timing buffered disk reads: 134 MB in 3.04 seconds = 44.09 MB/sec I don't think running these settings is really worthwhile. I think modern hard drives are pretty well running at optimum now days. Having selected LBA in the BIOS, instead of the default Auto, as recommended by Mandrake has probably set up the settings this exercise wants to achieve. I am no expert so I wouldn't even know if an LBA bit me on the bum. Cheers. John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Andrewski Posted July 15, 2004 Report Share Posted July 15, 2004 I don't think running these settings is really worthwhile. I think modern hard drives are pretty well running at optimum now days. Having selected LBA in the BIOS, instead of the default Auto, as recommended by Mandrake has probably set up the settings this exercise wants to achieve. <{POST_SNAPBACK}> And yet, running the commands Activate DMA: # hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda Activate DMA + Safe Performance-enhancing Options: # hdparm -d 1 -A 1 -m 16 -u 1 -a 64 /dev/hda (they're listed in the Gentoo handbook) definitely helped my hard drive a little bit, and those options are conservative and general. So while it may not help a lot, it helps, and that's enough for me. Once I figure out how to get this to run on startup, I'll take the time to read the specifications on my hard drives to get the optimal optimisation. B) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoho Posted July 15, 2004 Report Share Posted July 15, 2004 To add it permanently, look at your /etc/sysconfig/harddisks : you can put options to tweak your hard disk "permanently" and "cleanly" (no ugly script launching hdparm during boot). A bit more infos here (caution, this applies to redhat, some options may not be implemented in mandrake): http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/R...-sysconfig.html Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest raxxal Posted February 26, 2005 Report Share Posted February 26, 2005 (edited) I just came across this command in the Gentoo installation handbook. My first question, after I noticed that even the conservative settings it offered me helped my drive, was, "How do I set that permanently/on startup?" How do I set that permanently/on startup? <{POST_SNAPBACK}> Just add them to your rc.local Edited February 26, 2005 by raxxal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kristi Posted March 2, 2005 Report Share Posted March 2, 2005 When I first got my Shuttle AN35N board, everything that did not expressly have UDMA support crawled. They finally came out with a bios flash upgrade - "i" I think, that supported DMA - and then everything ran fast. If your bios does not have a dma on setting, this may be very worthwhile! just my 2 cents. Kristi Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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