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My hdd dead? Low hdparm score.

my system is running very slow, took over 3 minutes to load xfce and i've got a 3.0ghz 512megs of ram machine. Anyway i ran hdparm and these are the results,
debian:/home/sofa# hdparm -Tt /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing cached reads: 2456 MB in 2.00 seconds = 1227.57 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 2 MB in 8.26 seconds = 247.95 kB/sec

that can't be right but i've done the test 3 times. The harddrive isn't clicking or anything but could this be the reason everything is running so slow?

The value from the "Timing buffer-cache reads" looks pretty good. The value from the "Timing buffered disk reads" (i.e. STR) does not. What kind of hard drive is it (i.e. manufacturer, size, type of interface, etc)? How long have you had it?

May want to try this command and see what info it tells you about the settings for the drive.

Code:

root@smoker / # hdparm -I /dev/hda



/dev/hda:



ATA device, with non-removable media

        Model Number:      Maxtor 6Y080P0

        Serial Number:      Y22J9KXE

        Firmware Revision:  YAR41BW0

Standards:

        Supported: 7 6 5 4

        Likely used: 7

Configuration:

        Logical        max    current

        cylinders      16383  4047

        heads          16      16

        sectors/track  63      255

        --

        CHS current addressable sectors:  16511760

        LBA    user addressable sectors:  160086528

        device size with M = 1024*1024:      78167 MBytes

        device size with M = 1000*1000:      81964 MBytes (81 GB)

Capabilities:

        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)

        Queue depth: 1

        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, no device specific minimum

        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16

        Advanced power management level: unknown setting (0x0000)

        Recommended acoustic management value: 192, current value: 254

        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6

            Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns

        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4

            Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns

Commands/features:

        Enabled Supported:

          *    NOP cmd

          *    READ BUFFER cmd

          *    WRITE BUFFER cmd

          *    Host Protected Area feature set

          *    Look-ahead

          *    Write cache

          *    Power Management feature set

                Security Mode feature set

          *    SMART feature set

          *    FLUSH CACHE EXT command

          *    Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command

          *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set

          *    Automatic Acoustic Management feature set

                SET MAX security extension

                Advanced Power Management feature set

          *    DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd

          *    SMART self-test

          *    SMART error logging

Security:

        Master password revision code = 65534

                supported

        not    enabled

        not    locked

        not    frozen

        not    expired: security count

        not    supported: enhanced erase

HW reset results:

        CBLID- above Vih

        Device num = 0 determined by the jumper

Checksum: correct

root@smoker / #

Compare yours to mine and see what yours is set up as. It could be that there is a IDE chipset problem and it is not using nothing but the generic drivers. They are very slow. The part with "capabilities" is the important part, usually anyway.

Hope that helps.

:D :D :D :D

Quote:

Originally posted by daihard
The value from the "Timing buffer-cache reads" looks pretty good. The value from the "Timing buffered disk reads" (i.e. STR) does not. What kind of hard drive is it (i.e. manufacturer, size, type of interface, etc)? How long have you had it?

The drive is a western digital 120gig (WD1200JB) 8 meg cache. I've had it less than a year. Here is my hdparm -I /dev/hda printout

Code:

debian:/home/sofa# hdparm -I /dev/hda



/dev/hda:



ATA device, with non-removable media

        Model Number:      WDC WD1200JB-00CRA1

        Serial Number:      WD-WMA8C4693683

        Firmware Revision:  17.07W17

Standards:

        Supported: 5 4 3 2

        Likely used: 6

Configuration:

        Logical        max    current

        cylinders      16383  16383

        heads          16      16

        sectors/track  63      63

        --

        CHS current addressable sectors:  16514064

        LBA    user addressable sectors:  234441648

        device size with M = 1024*1024:      114473 MBytes

        device size with M = 1000*1000:      120034 MBytes (120 GB)

Capabilities:

        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)

        bytes avail on r/w long: 40    Queue depth: 1

        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum

        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16

        Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5

            Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns

        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4

            Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns

Commands/features:

        Enabled Supported:

          *    READ BUFFER cmd

          *    WRITE BUFFER cmd

          *    Host Protected Area feature set

          *    Look-ahead

          *    Write cache

          *    Power Management feature set

                Security Mode feature set

          *    SMART feature set

          *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set

                Automatic Acoustic Management feature set

                SET MAX security extension

          *    DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd

          *    SMART self-test

          *    SMART error logging

Security:

                supported

        not    enabled

        not    locked

                frozen

        not    expired: security count

        not    supported: enhanced erase

HW reset results:

        CBLID- above Vih

        Device num = 0 determined by the jumper

Checksum: correct

Looks like it is using udma2 instead of the newer udma5 or udma6 modes. I'm not familiar with Debian but you may want to find out about that chipset driver. It is usually in the kernel or in as a module. I'm not sure about how Debian is set up. Sorry.

This is what my timings are:

Code:

root@smoker / # hdparm -tT /dev/hda



/dev/hda:

 Timing cached reads:  1348 MB in  2.00 seconds = 672.76 MB/sec

 Timing buffered disk reads:  170 MB in  3.00 seconds =  56.58 MB/sec

root@smoker / #

Your should be somewhere around there, at least better than what you have now for sure. That drive should be much faster than that.

Anybody more familiar with Debian and how they have their stuff set up??

Later

:D :D :D :D