Hello : Its a beautiful day

I am using Fedora 10 and have been trying to enable the DMA for the data transfer through esata (3Gbps). How do it make it happen.

Linux Kernel: 2.6.27.21-170.2.56.fc10.x86_64 #1 SMP x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux)

I have used hdparm /dev/sdf and here it is:

[root@Summa ~]# hdparm /dev/sdf

/dev/sdf:
IO_support = 0 (default)
16-bit)
HDIO_GET_UNMASKINTR failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
HDIO_GET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
HDIO_GET_KEEPSETTINGS failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
readonly = 0 (off)
readahead = 256 (on)
geometry = 60801/255/63, sectors = 976773168, start = 0
[root@Summa ~]#

If your answer is sdparm (there is no DMA on/off option available in sdparm) please let me the steps that I have to go through for enabling the DMA.


I am trying to figure out. Any idea would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
NR

The connection between esata and sata are the same. There isn't a dma setting to disable or enable. AFAIK, the dma is in the controllers and the output is streamed (serialized). If you have a Western Digital drive, you could check the setting of the 1.5/3.0 GB setting.

hdparm does not work with SCSI or SATA disks...look for something similar to this in dmesg:

If you see it, you already have DMA enabled.

The
scsi 2:0:0:0: Direct-Access ATA

It is enabled. So, if the DMA is enabled, When I check my CPU utilization during the data transfer it is ranging frm 73% to 80% throughout the transfer (with no other application running other than the transfer). Why is this happening?. Where as in Windows Vista its taking much lesser time around 40 % less time

Can you suggest me if there is any means that I can Improve the performance of this file download speed (reduce time to download) on fedora 10.

Thank you.
NR

Perhaps we can, if you actually told us something about the "data transfer". From where to where? Over what medium?

The file size of 20GB should be transfered from the System hard drive to the External Disk (Seagate or Western Digital either 7200 or 5400 rpm with esata) via the esata port connected with an esata cable. Is it possible to utilize the potential of the esata (3Gbps) and Fedora 10. I hope there is something that is being restricted (kind of enable/disable DMA, write speed, etc) by fedora.

Can you let me know: How to improve the performance (any possible way)? and what is that , that has the extra feature in Vista than Fedora 10 in transferring large files to an external hard disk? why not Fedora 10.

If the DMA is enabled why is the CPU usage factor higher? (I hope this should not be the case, the basic meaning of the DMA is gone). Correct me if I am wrong

Thank you
NR

Well, how are you copying the file? What utility? Are you doing compression during the move, just a straight copy, file move, what?? Is the system drive and the esata drive on the same controller??

Lots of things affect this....

What chipset is your motherboard running? When Fedora switched to libata (no more hdX drives) there were some issues, that have still not been cleared up. The Nforce 4 chisets are one of the many sets that are affected by this.

I am copying the file from the system hard drive and pasting it onto externally connected Western Digital hard disk. I have no utility for that. I have looked around for an alternative in linux (Tera copy, kill copy, fast copy, rich copy--these are for windows - I hope they use them over the network, but I don't know whether they would fetch the kind of transfer I am looking for?)
can you let suggest me the best utility for Fedora 10.
Is there anything that sounds like Multi threaded copying onto the hard drive?

There is no Compression on the fly...It is just a straight copy.

Yes, The system drive and the esata drive are on the same controller.

@lazlow => Motherboard MSI X58 pro

This bug MAY (or may not) be causing your issue. The core of the bug seems to be transferring from one type of drive to another. Since your motherboard uses a separate chip to drive the esata it may also effect you. The bug was still active on the initial release of F10. I have side stepped the issue by switching to Centos5(RHEL5 with logos removed). Bugs of this nature are why RHEL6 has been pushed back repeatedly (RHEL is based on Fedora, RHEL6 was initially scheduled to be based on F9, hopefully it will be based on F11 assuming bugs are fixed).