[Sheflug] Disk Activity Problems

[Barrie Bremner <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>> "Robert" == Robert Pumphrey <rob.pumphrey [at] certus-tech.com> writes:

    Robert> Hi, I am having some performance problems with my
    Robert> machine. I have kernel 2.4.10 built on SuSE 7.1 The
    Robert> machine is a 1.4Gz Athlon machine with 512Mb RAM and a
    Robert> 40Gb IDE disk.

    Robert> If I do something that involves lots of disk activity, say
    Robert> copying a directory containing 70Mb, the processor load
    Robert> goes upto, say 7 (as reported by xload). The X Window
    Robert> manager becomes unusable for maybe a minute, and
    Robert> generally, the machine appears to grind to a halt.

    Robert> I would be grateful for any suggestions as to how I could
    Robert> improve the behaviour of my machine.

    Robert> Regards

    Robert> Rob

Rob, it might worthwhile upgrading the kernel to a more recent 2.4.x
kernel, what with all the changes that have been going on with that
series.

Heavy disk activity does increase the load on my boxen (all IDE disks)
- but nothing like the numbers you've seen.

Guessing a little bit here, but...

Has DMA and the like been enabled for that drive?
To check, issue hdparm /dev/hda. You should get something like

[root@flux root]# hdparm  /dev/hde

/dev/hde:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  3 (32-bit w/sync)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 26197/16/63, sectors = 26406576, start = 0

Cheers.

Baz.

-- 
Barrie J. Bremner		OpenPGP public key ID: F78CEE08
baz [at] barriebremner.com	http://barriebremner.com/


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