Re: [Sheflug] Disk Activity Problems

[Robert Pumphrey <xxxxx [at] xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Barrie,

Thanks for that, I just turned on DMA using

hdparm -d 1 /dev/hda

and disk copying just flys. A 2 minute operation now takes 2 seconds. 
Thanks.

/dev/hda:
  multcount    =  0 (off)
  I/O support  =  0 (default 16-bit)
  unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
  using_dma    =  1 (on)
  keepsettings =  0 (off)
  nowerr       =  0 (off)
  readonly     =  0 (off)
  readahead    =  8 (on)
  geometry     = 4863/255/63, sectors = 78125000, start = 0

These are my current settings. What will happen if I start to twiddle 
with multcound & I/O Support?
Having set this parameter once, will I have to set it after each 
re-boot? (I know I can find this out by re-booting, but I would rather 
not have to)

Thanks again.

Rob




Barrie Bremner wrote:

>>>>>>"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.
> 
> 


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