optimize your hd, it can go faster!

**siddhartha** · 09-03-2003

let me introduce a friend of mine.. hdparm
you can use this tool to enhance your hd, since in a default install your hd will have almost all the features turned to off..

So you buy a great 7200rpm hd and now you don't use it's cool features?

take a look at this great article and enjoy

**bpark** · 09-03-2003

Isn't this used for DMA?

**bmxface** · 09-03-2003

gentoo sex is updatedb; locate; talk; date; cd; strip; look; touch; finger; unzip; uptime; gawk; head; emerge --oneshot condom; mount; fsck; gasp; more; yes; yes; yes; more; umount; emerge -C condom; make clean; sleep.

HAHAHA......yes i thought that was verry funny

**Dolda2000** · 09-03-2003

Actually, I don't thin that's such a big problem anymore. Note that this article was written back in 2000. Much work has been done on IDE since then, and I believe that most chipset drivers automatically set the optimal settings nowadays. I know for sure that mine does, at least.
There are still some drivers that don't do this, and to owners of these, that article may very well be well worth reading.

**siddhartha** · 09-04-2003

you would be surprised... just do this test:

Code:

hdparm /dev/hda

and check what options you have ON and what options you have OFF

Then do the speed test:

Code:

hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

and check the two speeds.. tune your hardisk turing options you are not using ON, and repeat the test. You will be surprised.

In my brand new 80Gb 7200rpm hd, dma was on, but ALL the other features (udma5, i/o support, readahead, unmasqirc,..) were OFF.

After turning them on, the timing buffered disk reads multiplied, and now when i compile or copy files, computer goes faster.

Also remember the settings you modify with hdparm will not be saved after reboot, so you have to add it to a boot script or runlevel.

**Dolda2000** · 09-04-2003

Yeah, I have checked that, and I did already before this. My VIA driver has already set 16 sector multifetch, 32-bit async I/O, unmasked IRQs, and UDMA5 transfer, making for about 32 MBs/s. I believe that the chipset drivers on my other computers (mainly PIIXn ones) have done the same, but I'll have to check that out more closely.

**Dillinger** · 09-05-2003

I wasn't able to set dma, which is frustrating because I'm using a drivewhich supports DMA and is much like the drive the article used. It kept giving me operation not permitted, I think my motherboard is too old for it. But I changed the other stuff and it gave it some improvment. Thanks for making this post, this is quite a useful tool!

**Dolda2000** · 09-05-2003

What IDE chipset do you have?

**drspin** · 09-05-2003

not to tread where i'm not familiar with - are you root???

stupid question i know - but that solves about 70% of the problems my frinds have with LINUX

Cole

**Dillinger** · 09-06-2003

Heh sorry Dolda I'm kind of a hardware newb, I'm not even sure what an IDE chipset is.

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optimize your hd, it can go faster!

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