Tell me tips about increasing system speed

penguinlnx · 03-15-2005, 10:09 PM

RAID 1 is indeed 2x as fast when it is not done in software, but using a hardware card and two physical drives. It is one of the BIG advertized features of all IBM x86 3rd party cards:

The reason is simple: One drive is invisible to the system, but not to the hardware card:
It reads both drives simultaneously/ (alternate blocks) since it can position the read heads in different places at the same time, and does so seamlessly. When writing, both head systems are aligned to write the same data in parallel to each drive, hence only the READ speed is doubled, not the WRITE speed.

So just to recap: RAID 0 *AND* RAID 1 give incredible speed bonuses when implimented in hardware on an inboard card. This is not just an option, but the reason the cards are purchased, and why they sell.

And no - I must not be on dope. (...fluff removed by request: next time I'll edit)

I don't as a rule put poisonous industrial solvents in my bloodstream.....

ccool · 03-16-2005, 12:04 AM

if you really have speed-trouble, you might look at "hdparm" I had a problem once where the DMA was not enable. for some reason it was just not activated and it was running in safe mode. The result => the slowest 2500+ computer ever. The hard-drive were running at 8 MB/sec... instead of more than 30

here something I have :

Code:

root@ccool:/home/ccool# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 Timing cached reads:   1392 MB in  2.00 seconds = 696.00 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   98 MB in  3.05 seconds =  32.13 MB/sec
root@ccool:/home/ccool# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  1 (on)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 9732/255/63, sectors = 80054059008, start = 0
root@ccool:/home/ccool#

kornerr · 03-16-2005, 12:59 AM

Well, I think my DMA activated... May be someone knows where is the "process list", smth like windows' registry's entry - "run", where are all the apps that start up automatically. I just want to turn off some processes, because I suppose them useless. I have about 40 processes! And I'm sure it's too much. E.g., I left 12 processes in windows, and it shows me now: "I eat only 63MB RAM"... Linux eats more now. I want him to be not so fat

Can you help?
Thanks.

halo14 · 03-16-2005, 07:44 AM

:/ dope is *NOT* glue... dope refers to any opium derived narcotic... as well as a term used for any absorbent material used in explosives (e.g.-Trinitrotoluene), such as sawdust, mica, etc...

Alcoholics Anonymous was started by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob in Akron, OH in 1935...NA was started as an offshoot of AA in the late 40's, with the first sets of meetings beng held in the Los Angeles area in the early 50's... not by moses...

(it's amazing what you know when your family owns a large substance abuse treatment center and is very big in the AA community

)

penguinlnx · 03-16-2005, 09:18 AM

(deleted...)

penguinlnx · 03-16-2005, 09:24 AM

P.S. I am quite shocked that they still use substance abuse as an actual treatment. (this line's still funny)

kornerr · 03-16-2005, 09:25 AM

Please, STOP doping my thread, else I'll spam yours... really. I didn't write so much shit about Mandrake.

XavierP · 03-16-2005, 10:54 AM

Halo14 and penguinlnx - take it offline. Kornerr had a perfectly reasonable thread going that is of help to him and a number of our users. If you want to discuss "dope", do so either by email, IM or on a more suitable forum.

And let's leave our e-penises in our e-trousers, yeah?

DavidPhillips · 03-16-2005, 10:33 PM

I get almost double read speeds from my software RAID-1 mirror. It is a vast improvement and saves your data as well.
The faster the machine is the closer you will get to 2x speed disk reads.

On a slow or overloaded machine it will not be much of an improvement.

Use seperate controllers for best results.

penguinlnx · 03-17-2005, 02:57 AM

to sum up then:

Not only can RAID 0 double your READ speed at least, (which is significant for most apps.)

But RAID 1 in both HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE implimentations also nearly double READ speed.

(Better to have the facts right than worry about being wrong - peace)

kornerr · 03-17-2005, 03:41 AM

Well, I was asking about SOFTWARE. I don't want to upgrade my PC, I just want to get all this PC can do... Someday...

penguinlnx · 03-17-2005, 01:35 PM

I found one more interesting set of instructions by accident:
The paper describes how you can check and reconfigure your IDE controller and Drive
to quadruple the speed of the drive's read AND write behaviour...
Something about efficient chip programming at a low level.
...right from the command prompt!
If you give me an email I can send you the text file.

Javahulk · 03-17-2005, 05:33 PM

run top, google every name, and decide for yourself if they should be running

how would we know what you need and what you dont? only you know what you use the box for lol

kornerr · 03-18-2005, 01:41 AM

penguinlnx, there're several buttons just near the bottom of every reply. There's a mail button, too. I'd like to read this paper.
Javahulk, some posts later I asked "where is the autostart process list". Do you know? I'm not asking what process do I need. Just where.
Thanks.

DavidPhillips · 03-18-2005, 12:52 PM

top shows processes