# What is your speed of disks in Gentoo

## gillan_cz

I would like to know how high is your speed of yours disks in Gentoo. I have average speed about 10MB/s when I copy form ide0 to ide1 ... I think that is VERY BAD, becaouse I had speed about 40MB/s on NTFS. Now I have ReiserFS 3. I tried ext3, ext2, XFS, but it was +/- same speed. 

Can anyone advise me, how to increase disk speed at least to 25MB/s?

----------

## Cagnulein

paste me your  *Quote:*   

> hdparm -i /dev/hdx

 

----------

## Hackeron

 *gillan_cz wrote:*   

> I would like to know how high is your speed of yours disks in Gentoo. I have average speed about 10MB/s when I copy form ide0 to ide1 ... I think that is VERY BAD, becaouse I had speed about 40MB/s on NTFS. Now I have ReiserFS 3. I tried ext3, ext2, XFS, but it was +/- same speed. 
> 
> Can anyone advise me, how to increase disk speed at least to 25MB/s?

  Heh, I have some benchmarks that show quite the opposite, still, lets see some figures to backup your claims  :Smile: 

----------

## gillan_cz

/dev/hda:

```

bash-2.05b# hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=IC35L120AVV207-1, FwRev=V24OA66A, SerialNo=VNVD01G4CPWA5X

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=52

 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7965kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=241254720

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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 *udma5

 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a:

 * signifies the current active mode

```

/dev/hdb:

```

/dev/hdb:

 Model=ST340823A, FwRev=3.32, SerialNo=7EF0VMSQ

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs RotSpdTol>.5% }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0

 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=512kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=16511760, LBA=yes, LBAsects=78165360

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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 *udma5

 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: device does not report version:  1 2 3 4

 * signifies the current active mode

```

----------

## gillan_cz

 *Hackeron wrote:*   

>  *gillan_cz wrote:*   I would like to know how high is your speed of yours disks in Gentoo. I have average speed about 10MB/s when I copy form ide0 to ide1 ... I think that is VERY BAD, becaouse I had speed about 40MB/s on NTFS. Now I have ReiserFS 3. I tried ext3, ext2, XFS, but it was +/- same speed. 
> 
> Can anyone advise me, how to increase disk speed at least to 25MB/s?  Heh, I have some benchmarks that show quite the opposite, still, lets see some figures to backup your claims 

 

It starts at 12Mb/s but than speed fall down... 

http://www.gillanuv.net/all/diskspeed.png

this two dirs are on independent disks

----------

## Hackeron

 *gillan_cz wrote:*   

>  *Hackeron wrote:*    *gillan_cz wrote:*   I would like to know how high is your speed of yours disks in Gentoo. I have average speed about 10MB/s when I copy form ide0 to ide1 ... I think that is VERY BAD, becaouse I had speed about 40MB/s on NTFS. Now I have ReiserFS 3. I tried ext3, ext2, XFS, but it was +/- same speed. 
> 
> Can anyone advise me, how to increase disk speed at least to 25MB/s?  Heh, I have some benchmarks that show quite the opposite, still, lets see some figures to backup your claims  
> 
> It starts at 12Mb/s but than speed fall down... 
> ...

  The filesystems on both disks are reiser3?

----------

## gillan_cz

 *Hackeron wrote:*   

>  *gillan_cz wrote:*    *Hackeron wrote:*    *gillan_cz wrote:*   I would like to know how high is your speed of yours disks in Gentoo. I have average speed about 10MB/s when I copy form ide0 to ide1 ... I think that is VERY BAD, becaouse I had speed about 40MB/s on NTFS. Now I have ReiserFS 3. I tried ext3, ext2, XFS, but it was +/- same speed. 
> 
> Can anyone advise me, how to increase disk speed at least to 25MB/s?  Heh, I have some benchmarks that show quite the opposite, still, lets see some figures to backup your claims  
> 
> It starts at 12Mb/s but than speed fall down... 
> ...

 

/data/tmp Reiser3

/mnt/tmp ext3

... but it is same if i copy reiser->reiser or reiser->ext3  ( +/- few MB/s)

----------

## zieloo

I guess DMA is enabled?

```
/sbin/hdparm -c -d /dev/hda /dev/hdb
```

Also post the output of hdparm with -Tt options. Real transfer may differ depending on the system and IO load.

When I'm copying a really big file (separate drives, SATA) I hardly ever get tranfer rates > 20Mb/sek.

----------

## gillan_cz

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> I guess DMA is enabled?
> 
> ```
> /sbin/hdparm -c -d /dev/hda /dev/hdb
> ```
> ...

 

I have DMA enabled of course.

```
bash-2.05b# /sbin/hdparm -c -d /dev/hda /dev/hdb

/dev/hda:

 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)

 using_dma    =  1 (on)

/dev/hdb:

 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)

 using_dma    =  1 (on)

bash-2.05b#           
```

----------

## zieloo

As I said, this doesn't really mean there's sth wrong with your drive. (i would like to see hdparm -Tt, too). 

If you had transfers < 5MB/sek, that would be a problem.

[url]gra00000.republika.pl/foty/io.jpg[/url]

Is THAT much for a sata drive?

----------

## gillan_cz

```
bash-2.05b# hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

 Timing cached reads:   1644 MB in  2.00 seconds = 821.30 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:   78 MB in  3.06 seconds =  25.48 MB/sec

bash-2.05b# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   1652 MB in  2.00 seconds = 825.71 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  152 MB in  3.00 seconds =  50.61 MB/sec

```

It is only reading speed...... maybe writting is problem :-/

Copying is really slow... average about 10MB/s ... if I watch time needed for copying large file manualy it goes to 10MB/s

i wish i have at least 25MB/s too... 50MB/s will be better  :Sad: 

----------

## Hackeron

 *gillan_cz wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> bash-2.05b# hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb
> 
> ...

  Why is 1 drive reporting 25MB/sec on hdpram -Tt? -- that is very slow. All my drives are about 55MB/sec...Last edited by Hackeron on Mon Apr 18, 2005 12:08 pm; edited 1 time in total

----------

## zieloo

hdb has only a 512Kb-buffer so when writing data from one disk to another (this's what you try to do, right?) may be slown down by that.

----------

## gillan_cz

 *Quote:*   

> Why is 1 drive reporting 25MB/sec on hdpram -Tt? -- that is very slow. All my drives are above 55MB/sec...

 

it's 4years old 40GB disk with 512kB cache... that is maybe problem. But copying at 25MB/s is dream......

----------

## gillan_cz

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> hdb has only a 512Kb-buffer so when writing data from one disk to another (this's what you try to do, right?) may be slown down by that.

 

Yes, but 10MB/s is slow even with 512kb buffer. I had at NTFS 25MB/s and higher speed. 

It is possible that kernel doesnt support my kernel very well? I have nforce2.

----------

## Hackeron

 *gillan_cz wrote:*   

>  *zieloo wrote:*   hdb has only a 512Kb-buffer so when writing data from one disk to another (this's what you try to do, right?) may be slown down by that. 
> 
> Yes, but 10MB/s is slow even with 512kb buffer. I had at NTFS 25MB/s and higher speed. 
> 
> It is possible that kernel doesnt support my kernel very well? I have nforce2.

  Are you absolutely sure you got 25MB/sec on NTFS? -- Try copying a large file and timing how long it takes using your watch (ignore what you see on the screen). Windows often overestimates transfer rates.

Also, nforce2 support is really good on linux.

----------

## zieloo

Ok - older WDC-20Gb. Saving data on that disc. Reading from Samsung SATA 80Gb, f*^%^* fast. 

Transfer <10Mb/sek., average writing speed=8-9Mb/sek...

----------

## gillan_cz

 *Quote:*   

> Are you absolutely sure you got 25MB/sec on NTFS? -- Try copying a large file and timing how long it takes using your watch (ignore what you see on the screen). Windows often overestimates transfer rates.
> 
> Also, nforce2 support is really good on linux.

 

I don't have NTFS anymore. I'am sure that was about 25Mb/s ... 

Screenshot I posted is when i copied to faster disk and 7MB/s for IBM 180GXP with 8MB cache is very low.

----------

## zieloo

A guy asked why his disk under Win-you-know-what writes files 80MB/sec and under Linux only at 50Mb/sec.

You've proven the writing speed under Linux is unsatisfactory, ok. Can you send us a link or whatever showing the mentioned 25mb/sec? Or maybe that was 25Mbit/sec? :Razz: 

What about copying files and saving them on the same drive? How fast is that?

----------

## gillan_cz

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> A guy asked why his disk under Win-you-know-what writes files 80MB/sec and under Linux only at 50Mb/sec.
> 
> You've proven the writing speed under Linux is unsatisfactory, ok. Can you send us a link or whatever showing the mentioned 25mb/sec? Or maybe that was 25Mbit/sec?
> 
> What about copying files and saving them on the same drive? How fast is that?

 

Copying files is on the same drive (IBM 180GXP, 120GB, 8MB cache) is about 13MB/s. I watched it manualy, with clock.

I don't say that linux is bad, it has slow FSs, I am asking what I have wrong, that my drives are so slow.

----------

## zieloo

I got 11,74MB/sec on a ATA drive and 23MB/sec on a SATA. Also half-manually counted.

The numbers you're getting are not that unsual...

Well... You change the IO scheduler, choosing the right one may have a great impact on writing speed.

----------

## gillan_cz

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> I got 11,74MB/sec on a ATA drive and 23MB/sec on a SATA. Also half-manually counted.
> 
> The numbers you're getting are not that unsual...
> 
> Well... You change the IO scheduler, choosing the right one may have a great impact on writing speed.

 

How can I change that, please?  :Smile: 

----------

## gillan_cz

I did some benchmarks manualy counted:

HDA - IBM 180GPX (120GB)

HDB - some old seagate shit 5200rpms, 40GB

```

hdb (reiser3) -> hda (reiser3)  7,78MB/s <-- from slow to fast

hda5 (reiser3) -> hdb5 (reiser3) 13,9MB/s

hda (reiser3) -> hdb (reiser3) 15,3MB/s

hda (reiser3) -> hdb (ext3) 19,9MB/s  <-- interesting from fast to slow

hda5 (reiser3) -> hda4 (reiser3) 13,6MB/s

hdb (ext3) -> hda (reiser3)  8,4MB/s

hdb (ext3) -> hdb (reiser3)  8,6MB/s

hdb2 (ext3) -> hdb2 (ext3)  10,4MB/s

```

----------

## zieloo

reiserfs an ext3 caches the data. Try to rerun the same benchmark and you'll see an noticeable improvement.

IO schedulers are chosen in the kernel. Go to:Device Drivers ->Block devices -> IO Schedulers.

So difficult to look for it by yourself? :Razz: 

----------

## gillan_cz

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> reiserfs an ext3 caches the data. Try to rerun the same benchmark and you'll see an noticeable improvement.
> 
> IO schedulers are chosen in the kernel. Go to:Device Drivers ->Block devices -> IO Schedulers.
> 
> So difficult to look for it by yourself?

 

I copied allways another file. I know that it cahes data. 

I never heard about IO schedulers so I don't know where to look for that  :Smile:  Now I know, I try to experiment with that. Thank you for advice.  :Smile: 

----------

## DZello

Raising the PCI clock speed when overclocking can decrease your hard disk performance. I've got this problem with an onboard Promise IDE controller.

----------

## Rumil

 *DZello wrote:*   

> Raising the PCI clock speed when overclocking can decrease your hard disk performance. I've got this problem with an onboard Promise IDE controller.

 

Yes, but most of modern mainboards has locked frequency of pci bus (I mean it's independent form fsb). Or at least nforce has it..... not so sure about VIA(acually I think they just have different pci/fsb dividers), pretty sure all modern intel has it as well.

----------

## Lucky B

Here's my system so you can compare

```

beast ~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   3520 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1759.39 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  156 MB in  3.01 seconds =  51.82 MB/sec

beast ~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

 Timing cached reads:   3320 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1659.42 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  122 MB in  3.02 seconds =  40.44 MB/sec

beast ~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   3448 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1723.40 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  158 MB in  3.01 seconds =  52.45 MB/sec

beast ~ # hdparm -Tt /dev/hdb

/dev/hdb:

 Timing cached reads:   3496 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1745.65 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  134 MB in  3.02 seconds =  44.39 MB/sec

```

default scheduler

Here's my tests:

```

beast home # cat /etc/mtab (snipped for clarity)

/dev/hdb6 / ext3 rw,noatime 0 0

/dev/hdb7 /usr reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0

/dev/hdb8 /var reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0

/dev/hdb9 /opt reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0

/dev/hdb12 /home reiserfs rw,noatime,notail 0 0

/dev/hdb10 /boot ext3 rw,noatime 0 0

/dev/hda5 /mnt/win_C ntfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev,umask=0007,gid=100 0 0

/dev/hda2 /mnt/win_D ntfs rw,noexec,nosuid,nodev 0 0

```

```

beast temp # pwd

/home/temp

beast temp # ls -lak /mnt/win_D/pagefile.sys

-rw-------  1 root root 1572864 Apr 10 09:24 /mnt/win_D/pagefile.sys

beast temp # time cp /mnt/win_D/pagefile.sys .

real    1m16.224s

user    0m0.026s

sys     0m7.200s

```

20 MB/s from NTFS to reiserfs on different drives (same channel)

```

beast temp # time cp pagefile.sys pagewhat.sys

real    1m54.987s

user    0m0.013s

sys     0m5.620s

```

13.6 MB/s from reiser to itself (but note less system time used)

```
beast temp # time cp pagewhat.sys /var/

real    1m41.232s

user    0m0.021s

sys     0m5.204s

```

15.5 MB/s from reiser to reiser on the same drive different partitions

unfortunatelly I do not have an ext or reiser partition on /dev/hda

EDIT: Interestingly enough, check this out:

```

beast temp # time cat pagefile.sys > pagewhat.sys

real  1m49.922s

user  0m0.008s

sys   0m4.889s

```

this was after I deleted the files.

----------

## Ard Righ

Does hdparm support SATA drives yet ? I cannot enable hdparm, because it doesn't like my two WD Raptor SATA  drives

----------

## zieloo

 *Ard Righ wrote:*   

> Does hdparm support SATA drives yet ? I cannot enable hdparm, because it doesn't like my two WD Raptor SATA  drives

 

 :Confused:   :Surprised:   Not really:

```
# /sbin/hdparm -cd /dev/sda

/dev/sda
```

```
# /sbin/hdparm -i /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Invalid argument
```

----------

## Gentree

```
/dev/hdc:

 Timing cached reads:   1320 MB in  2.00 seconds = 658.45 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  160 MB in  3.02 seconds =  53.02 MB/sec

```

I have a Seagate Barracuda 80G ATA "100MB/s" drive which I think has a 2M buffer.

last night I copied 3.9G from reiserfs to ext3 on the same disk , it took just under 20min.

If my calcs are correct that makes about 3.3MB/s ,  :Crying or Very sad: 

As for hdparm and SATA , does that even make sense? If the kernel module for the sata card / onboard controller uses DMA it may help but I dont see how you can have a _serial_ interface disk using DMA unless you have serial-DDR memory!!

----------

## Rumil

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> 
> 
> As for hdparm and SATA , does that even make sense? If the kernel module for the sata card / onboard controller uses DMA it may help but I dont see how you can have a _serial_ interface disk using DMA unless you have serial-DDR memory!!

 

I don't quite get what you mean here: what have DDR memory to do with hard drive's DMA??

And there is no need for hdparm to support manually setting DMA for sata drives - it was possible for IDE becouse there wasn't one standard of detecting if hd supports DMA, but SATA standard defines one.

----------

## Gentree

ext3 ->R4

```
bash-3.00#time cp -a * /tmpd

real    3m21.093s

user    0m0.564s

sys     0m19.085s

umount /tmpd && mkfs.reiser4 /dev/hdc8 && mount /tmpd

```

reiserfs->R4

```
bash-3.00#time cp -a * /tmpd

real    3m16.486s

user    0m0.573s

sys     0m19.083s

du -h /tmpd

835M    /tmpd

```

About 4.25 MB/s

now as 'tuned' ext3

reiserfs->ext3

```
 mkfs.ext3 -b 1024 -O dir_index /dev/hdc8 
```

```

real    6m31.590s

user    0m0.492s

sys     0m16.802s

du -h /tmpd

849M    /tmpd

```

 :Shocked: 

It took so long on ext3 I thought I had done some dumb mistake.

Frankly I'm surprised, I did not expect much diff either way.

I dont want to get into over-worn discussions about the merits/defects of R4 here. I've used it for over a year and it works for me. But on the basis of what I see above you may want to test it (on non-critical data if you will) and see if speeds things.

I'd like to see some comparative data for NTFS, shame kernel support is still only ro.

Maybe I'll find time to reinstall my broken win2k ...

 :Cool: 

----------

## zieloo

So he should be happy with his 7 or 8mb/sec...

----------

## Gentree

 *Rumil wrote:*   

>  *Gentree wrote:*   
> 
> As for hdparm and SATA , does that even make sense? If the kernel module for the sata card / onboard controller uses DMA it may help but I dont see how you can have a _serial_ interface disk using DMA unless you have serial-DDR memory!! 
> 
> I don't quite get what you mean here: what have DDR memory to do with hard drive's DMA??
> ...

 

DMA = direct memory access . The memory is accessed via a _parallel_ bus . Selecting " Use PCI DMA by default when available  " will enable it for the ATA/ATAPI modules .

It's down to the SATA driver whether the SATA controller uses DMA, but the disk cannot access memory directly: it is a serial interface device.  :Cool: 

----------

## Gentree

@ Lucky B 

 *Quote:*   

> 20 MB/s from NTFS to reiserfs on different drives (same channel) 
> 
> Code:	
> 
> beast temp # time cp pagefile.sys pagewhat.sys 
> ...

 

What disks do you have. SATA? Also are you using captive to get rw access to NTFS.?

Thx  :Cool: 

----------

## Gentree

 *zieloo wrote:*   

> So he should be happy with his 7 or 8mb/sec...

 

Happy , no ; less worried maybe.

me's getting worried tho' !

100MB/s ATA disks do not give that on bulk read/write tx , they dont claim to and I have seen hdparm timings in the 50MB/s range as often quoted.

[EDIT]From Seagate.com:  Avg. Sustained Transfer Rate (Mbytes/sec)	>58[/EDIT]

Also a copy is a read, a mem wr, a mem read and a disk write , so even with fast mem you need to divide by more than 2 again.

What I dont like is now seeing _an order of magnitude_ lower on file tx.

I am currently looking into a  marked drop in system responciveness under heavy compile load , this may be a clue.

 :Confused: 

----------

## Lucky B

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> @ Lucky B 
> 
>  *Quote:*   20 MB/s from NTFS to reiserfs on different drives (same channel) 
> 
> Code:	
> ...

 

Kernel driver, I only read from the drive but mount it rw. And btw, you quoted the wrong times =P

----------

## Gentree

Thanks, 

Is there any reason you mount NTFS rw? Last time I looked the kernel ntfs support could only write if the file was exactly the same size!

In any case if you use linux ntfs it does not mean much (ie anything at all) as a comparison of read or write performance of NTFS.

What HD do you have , its odd that you have about the same for buffer reads as my Barracuda but nearly 4x faster on cached reads.

 :Cool: 

----------

## Lucky B

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> Is there any reason you mount NTFS rw? Last time I looked the kernel ntfs support could only write if the file was exactly the same size!
> 
> 

 

I find myself tweaking 0's and 1's in config files for sticks and giggles.

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> 
> 
> In any case if you use linux ntfs it does not mean much (ie anything at all) as a comparison of read or write performance of NTFS.
> 
> 

 

I wanted a partition on a different drive, although it's not on a different channel. I have hdtach'd that drive and I only get 30MB/s max, which I think it's a bit deeper check than hdparm -t (or T, the non-buffered one).

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> 
> 
> What HD do you have , its odd that you have about the same for buffer reads as my Barracuda but nearly 4x faster on cached reads.
> 
> 

 

I have a pair of 200GB Western Digitals (PATA) with 8MB buffers. I used to have them hardware stripping raided until I killed my array with grub at 4am in the morning (grub + not paying attention + highpoint rocketraid + trying to fix it at 6am = 320GB of data (read: unlicensed anime, mpaa lawsuit worthy movies and licensed mp3s  :Twisted Evil:  ) down the drain)

The performance difference might be from hdparm tweaking.

If I could ssh to my box (I dun know what the heck I broke last night with my firewall) I'd paste my hdparm specs.

EDIT: ohh and in case you're interested my rocketraid peaked at 70MB/s average in hdtach.

----------

## Gentree

hdtach ? I'd like something better than hdparm to assess hd's.

[EDIT] Well I found hdtach, a windows only freeware , but it seems not to do much more than hdparm from what I see. Only does sequencial reads from the disk.

I have not tried it since I dont have a working win installation atm. 

Why do you say it is "deeper"?

Thx  :Cool: 

----------

## Lucky B

I say it's deeper because it takes into account random reads through the the hard drive (measuring speed as you fall away from the spindle) not just random accesses.

Also, about your tests, I don't think they're 100% accurate or very fair to compare to mine. Copying many files is not always sequential in nature so you're basically copying sparse files, this puts undue emphasis on the filesystem hierarchy more than the drive interface itself. (I know pagefile.sys is one big chunk because I created it that way  :Very Happy: )

I will do further tests tonight by repartitioning my FAT32 partitions to include an NTFS, ext3, reiser, r4, xfs and fat32 partition in each drive so that I can test all 36 combinations and report on it.

EDIT: actually I think there are 42 combinations total but I am not gonna do some of em =P

----------

## Gentree

OK, if you are sure hdtach does random reads I stand corrected , like I said , I did not actually install it because I dont have any win* at the moment. I had read that it only did sequencial reads but that may no have been reliable.

As for my test not being as "fair" as yours , I think we both indicated clearly what we were doing so both are as valid but tested different situations.

Your test on a big file will make it sequencial and will get a "best case" result for the fs under test. Which is fine and valid as such but something I hardy ever will do in reality.

What is more important to me is a slightly more "realistic use" test which is why I chose to time something I actually did .

The capability of a fs to create and delete a large number if variously sized (often small) files is an important factor in assessing what fs I am going to use.

Some fs will perform very well on big files but equally poorly on a "many small file" copy/move and vice versa.

What would interest me is to see some timings from a native NTFS copy under windoze and see how it compares to a similar copy under Linux. This would have to be stopwatch timings rather that the completely unrealistic data speeds shown by windows during copying.

BTW I think to test all poss combination of 6 filing systems you will have 6x5x4x3x2 tests to do . Good luck.

I dont think fat32 is very interesting since it is an non-journalling fs so you could poss divide you workload by a factor of 6 by dropping it.

The only real use I see for fat32 is as a common rw partition for a dual boot system, in which case it is the only choise so no need to compare timings.

Anyway good luck and I look forward to seeing your results.

 :Cool: 

----------

## Lucky B

actually it's 6x6x2 6x6 matrix for one drive then compare using two drives. And I can probably script it using nested loops.

I haven't done the test yet because I accidentally neutered my partitions when adding a new logical partition. Quick fix but didn't feel like testing anything afterwards =P

----------

## superboy2k

I've the same problem!! I tried everything change all hardware (mb, nic)

The pc is a 440Bx board, 256Mb, Celeron 450, ultrastard 10k disk:

/dev/sda:

 Timing cached reads:   480 MB in  2.01 seconds = 238.25 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  104 MB in  3.03 seconds =  34.35 MB/sec

this is ok, but if i make a file transfert or a network one, throughput is ~5 Mb/s, why?

In win i get 10Mb/s of network transfer and more in filesystem one.

it seams like pci performances sucks, i don't know what is it! i've tried 2.6.11 gentoo and mm...

----------

## kornhs4

I also had a disk-speed on hda approx. 5Mb/s. After starting udma mode and rc-update add hdparm boot I get:

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   2280 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1138.47 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:   82 MB in  3.04 seconds =  26.98 MB/sec

/dev/hda:

 Model=IC25N060ATMR04-0, FwRev=MO3OAD4A, SerialNo=MRG31YKCJPKB4H

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4

 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7884kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=117210240

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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

 AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a:

/etc/conf.d/hdparm:

# Copyright 1999-2004 Gentoo Foundation

# Distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v2

# $Header: /var/cvsroot/gentoo-x86/sys-apps/hdparm/files/hdparm-conf.d.3,v 1.2 2004/09/06 02:17:08 swegener Exp $

# You can either set hdparm arguments for each drive using hdX_args,

# discX_args, cdromX_args and genericX_args, e.g.

#

 hda_args="-d1 -c1 -u1 -m16 -X66"

# disc1_args="-d1"

 cdrom0_args="-d1 -c1 -u1 -X66"

# or, you can set hdparm options for ALL drives using all_args, e.g.

#

#all_args="-d1 -c1 -u1 -m16 -x66"

My System is a Asus Laptop A3800N, Centrino 1,6Ghz...

----------

## opentaka

```

linux root # hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=HDS722580VLAT20, FwRev=V32OA60A, SerialNo=VNR20AC2D9EK8S

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=52

 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1794kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=16511760, LBA=yes, LBAsects=160836480

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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 *udma5 

 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 3a: 

 * signifies the current active mode

```

```

linux root # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:   3404 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1701.41 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  174 MB in  3.03 seconds =  57.51 MB/sec

```

Is this good or bad??

average?

----------

## superboy2k

 *antiwmac wrote:*   

> 
> 
> ```
> 
> linux root # hdparm -Tt /dev/hda
> ...

 

is good, but  try to transfer a file in the same hd, i get only 5mb/s also if hdparms tells me 33 mb/s

----------

## Zyne

 *zieloo wrote:*   

>  *Ard Righ wrote:*   Does hdparm support SATA drives yet ? I cannot enable hdparm, because it doesn't like my two WD Raptor SATA  drives 
> 
>    Not really:
> 
> 

 

hmm what are you talking about?

```

# hdparm -itT /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:

 Model=WDC WD740GD-00FL31.0, FwRev=31.0, SerialNo=

 Config={ }

 RawCHS=9039/255/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0

 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0

 (maybe): CurCHS=9039/255/63, CurSects=0, LBA=no

 IORDY=no

 PIO modes:  pio0 

 AdvancedPM=no

 * signifies the current active mode

 Timing cached reads:   3116 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1555.90 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  194 MB in  3.00 seconds =  64.59 MB/sec
```

```

# emerge -pv hdparm

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!

[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/hdparm-5.7-r1  0 kB 

```

edit: just to make this post not completely useless, I did a little timing too...

```

/mnt/windows $ time cp dvdr.img /mnt/data/test.img

real    1m45.865s

user    0m0.235s

sys     0m13.226s

```

```

/mnt/data $ du test.img

 4592552   test.img
```

which comes down to: 4485 MB in 106 seconds = 42.3 MB/sec from ntfs to ext2

maybe I should also add some more info about the hd's themselves...

/mnt/windows is on /dev/hda1 (source disk) made by IBM

```

# hdparm -i /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

 Model=IC35L040AVVA07-0, FwRev=VA2OA52A, SerialNo=VNC212A2C3VV8B

 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=52

 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=1863kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16

 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=80418240

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,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 *udma5 

 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled

 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-5 T13 1321D revision 1: 

 * signifies the current active mode
```

/mnt/data is on /dev/sdb which is a sata drive on the nforce4 serial ata controller (Maxtor 160GB SATA)

```

# hdparm -i /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:

 Model=Maxtor 6Y160M0  YAR5, FwRev=YAR5, SerialNo=

 Config={ }

 RawCHS=19929/255/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0

 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0

 (maybe): CurCHS=19929/255/63, CurSects=0, LBA=no

 IORDY=no

 PIO modes:  pio0 

 AdvancedPM=no

 * signifies the current active mode
```

appearantly I'm not getting any info on the dma status of the sata disks though, so my first comment was wrong...

sorry about that...

----------

## #pfo

```

# hdparm -itT /dev/sdc

/dev/sdc:

 Model=WDC WD740GD-00FL31.0, FwRev=31.0, SerialNo=

 Config={ }

 RawCHS=9039/255/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=0

 BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=0kB, MaxMultSect=0

 (maybe): CurCHS=9039/255/63, CurSects=0, LBA=no

 IORDY=no

 PIO modes:  pio0 

 AdvancedPM=no

 * signifies the current active mode

 Timing cached reads:   3116 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1555.90 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  194 MB in  3.00 seconds =  64.59 MB/sec
```

it's intresting that u can issue a `hdparm -i` on a sata drive:

i get this results with my WD740GD (same disc as the one benchmarked above):

```
eistee pfo # hdparm -itT /dev/sda

/dev/sda:

 HDIO_GET_IDENTITY failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

 Timing cached reads:   3684 MB in  2.00 seconds = 2042.28 MB/sec

HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

 Timing buffered disk reads:  206 MB in  3.02 seconds =  68.15 MB/sec

HDIO_DRIVE_CMD(null) (wait for flush complete) failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

eistee pfo #

```

```

eistee # emerge -pv hdparm

These are the packages that I would merge, in order:

Calculating dependencies ...done!

[ebuild   R   ] sys-apps/hdparm-5.9  0 kB 

```

----------

