harddisk speed 3 Mb/s

[Jean]

I have an older pentium 2 which acts as a file/web/etc server with 3 harddisks ext3.

(hd0) /dev/sda 40 gig
(hd1) /dev/sdb 300 gig
(hd2) /dev/sdc 300 gig

Io is rather slow, I have seen 8 Mb/s but more often not above 4 Mb/s.

Those 300 gig drivers are not old, but the pc itself is, bios is from before 2000.
Are these speeds normal or can I tweak something here?
I have no harddrive tweaking experience on linux whatsoever.

Thanks.

[toad]

Re: harddisk speed 3 Mb/s

Unfortunately I can only point you in the right direction: hdparm

I cannot remember the commands, but if you google it I'm sure you'll find what you need.

HTH

[dibl]

Re: harddisk speed 3 Mb/s

IDE or SATA? Make and model of the IDE or SATA controller?

The hdds themselves, if they are newer, may be capable of faster speeds than the controller/bus that they are connected to. The controller may be the bottleneck.

[Jean]

Re: harddisk speed 3 Mb/s

@toad, yes I know about hdparm, I should google it some more.. I was hoping for something easy I gues.

@dible, that may very well be the case. The 500 gig I bought didn't work in that machine, it was too old for it, I had to buy this 300 instead, and yes its ide.

Though I should say, seldom had more fun from 25 bucks buying this old pentium and installing a web/etc server on it, even streaming hd material, and now with hardy /xfce it rocks..