HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

[luca]

Noticed a slow system, especially when accessing the hd?
You probably need to set some stuff up. It's simple. Just open a console session and type:

sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

You'll see the current performance.

Now just set some flags:

sudo hdparm -m16 -W1 -d1 -c1 -u1 /dev/hda

Note: "/dev/hda" is the hard disk you want to speed up.

Then just type again to see the performance boost:

sudo hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

Now let's save the flags, just type:

sudo kwrite /etc/hdparm.conf

Past the following at the bottom:

command_line {
       hdparm -q -m16 -q -W1 -q -d1 -q -c1 -q -u1 /dev/hda
}

Note: "/dev/hda" is the hard disk you want to speed up.

Enjoy.

That's it.

Hope that will help.

[LoneWolf]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

Thanks for the tip.

How about any suggestions as to which flags to use for optical drives?

[luca]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

Optical devices could be different and hard to set up correctly and some flags may cause issues during the burning, especially of dvd.
It's recommended only DMA, so "-d1".
Anyway, you can test some other flags on your own for the devices that you have in particular.

[LoneWolf]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

It's recommended only DMA, so "-d1".

This is what I have been doing thus far without fail. I just figured there might some secret switch that I didn't know about. You know how important it is to squeeze every ounce of performance out your hardware right?

[luca]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

Yep.
You could also try the "-c1" flag.

[dojcha]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

I'm just discover this forum so this post is probably late, I just wont to say that this params that Luca posted may vary from system to system so it is good to look man page for hdparm before set it. For example -m switch Luca posted will bust some hdd-s but will slowdown others. There is no universal settings for optimizing all system. hdparm is very good optimized by default on kubuntu on my systems (I have three diferent systems running kubuntu).

[whoiam55]

HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

I can't see much difference.

Here are the statics for my hdd.

Before your TIP
Timing cached reads: 3764 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1882.29 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 176 MB in 3.03 seconds = 58.06 MB/sec

After you TIP
Timing cached reads: 3692 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1845.36 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 178 MB in 3.00 seconds = 59.26 MB/sec

[luca]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

There's a big performance boost on my box, instead.

[bandit]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

Just wanted to piggy back on this topic and add little more info.
Some systems the HDD and Chipsets may already be detected correctly and working at top speed. So you want notice any speed increase.
Also you can use the same commands to set the DVD-RW speed.
You can also use "$ hdparm -X66 /dev/hda" to set your drive to UDMA mode2. I dont know if there is a setting to go up to UDMA 4 yet on the drives. I will look more into this.
For ALL CD-RWs and 90% of the DVD-RWs use "hdparm -X34 /dec/hdc" which sets them to UDMA 33/16. Only a few drives such as my Pioneer 6xDVD-DL/RW I know for sure run at UDMA 66. So I use the -X66 option on it. Unless you know 100% for sure that the drive supports UDMA66 then do not set it to 66. Doing so if the drive cant run at that can cuase damage to the drive. Just becuase its a burner doesnt mean it should smell like one
Cheers,
Joey

[riscphree]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

I cant seem to change the settings on my box.

riscphree@mainbox:~$ sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/sda6

/dev/sda6:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

is this because I'm using an SATA drive?

[bandit]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

have your tried just "sda" not "sda6"?

[whoiam55]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

have your tried just "sda" not "sda6"?

Yes, "sda6" is a partition, while he supposed to run it against a drive.

[riscphree]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

hmm, different error now:

riscphree@mainbox:~$ sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

[bandit]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

hmm, different error now:

riscphree@mainbox:~$ sudo hdparm -d1 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
setting using_dma to 1 (on)
HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device

Well its saying it doesnt have the option to switch DMA on or off. To be honest I havent upgraded to SATA yet so I dont know if it runs by default or not.
Hopefully someone who uses serial drives in the forum can comment.
I will ask around on some other forums also for you.
Cheers,
Joey

[riscphree]

Re: HOW TO: speed up your hard disk performance

well, this is my results with out, AFAIK, dma set to 1.

Timing cached reads: 936 MB in 2.00 seconds = 467.84 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 174 MB in 3.01 seconds = 57.76 MB/sec

thats an 80GB Hitachi SATA drive.