I have a Maxtor 6Y120P0 drive in my linux server, hdparm -t results show the best result of:

[root@smithafw root]# hdparm -t /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 4.82 seconds = 13.28 MB/sec

This seems a little slow to me -

Drive is capable of:

/dev/hdc:

Model=Maxtor 6Y120P0, FwRev=YAR41BW0, SerialNo=Y32KSJXE
Config={ Fixed }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57
BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7936kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=240121728
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 *mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 udma6
AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: (null): 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

but I can't get any better then around 13MB/sec - is there anything I can do to better this performance?

what's the output of these??

also, post the output of hdparm /dev/hdc.
did you enable dma? and other stuff

hdparm -Tt /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 128 MB in 3.09 seconds = 41.42 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 64 MB in 4.81 seconds = 13.31 MB/sec
[root@smithafw root]#
[root@smithafw root]# hdparm /dev/hdc

/dev/hdc:
multcount = 16 (on)
IO_support = 1 (32-bit)
unmaskirq = 0 (off)
using_dma = 1 (on)
keepsettings = 0 (off)
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 8 (on)
geometry = 14946/255/63, sectors = 240121728, start = 0

the drive reports it is running mdma mode, not ultra dma mode. that's weird, but setting
udma is done with
hdparm -X67 /dev/hdc
or so. that may be udma 66.