The Beuty of Linux
 

I just bought a new hard drive, the salesperson told me that it has 8MB buffer, etc. Well I did not see the hard drive being labeled that way, however, the sales man said don't worry,if it is not what I teling you, just bring it back, and you get your money back. I came home Installed the new HD, run hdparm -i /dev/hda, and bingo! I have all the info about my new hard drive, including the buffer size:

Model=WDC WD800JD-00HKA0, FwRev=13.03G13, SerialNo=WD-WMA
Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec SpinMotCtl Fixed DTR>5Mbs FmtGapReq }
RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=58
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=8192kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156301488
IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
PIO modes: pio0 pio3 pio4
DMA modes: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2
UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2
AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
Drive conforms to: device does not report version:

* signifies the current active mode

Really don't know how to check these information in Windows, let's say XP.
The whole idea of getting this new hard drive is because I am on the road to switch to Linux for ever and ever! As I read somewhere on the net, Linux is fun!

awesome! how's it running??

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

hdparm -tT reports the following:

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 1696 MB in 2.00 seconds = 846.01 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 178 MB in 3.02 seconds = 58.87 MB/sec

Raxxal

that's pretty cool... mine sucks:

bash-2.05b# hdparm -tT /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 636 MB in 2.00 seconds = 318.00 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 80 MB in 3.07 seconds = 26.06 MB/sec

LOL

of course it's only a 2mb cache and the disk spins at 5400rpm

Cheers ;)

FWIW - Model=WDC WD800JB, 8Mg cache

/dev/hda:
Timing buffer-cache reads: 984 MB in 2.00 seconds = 491.83 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 112 MB in 3.03 seconds = 36.93 MB/sec

-- J.W.

That's the SATA version, right? I just got the same drive in IDE wd800jb and it's nice, but nowhere near as fast on IDE on my old box :) I should have got a SATA card and the SATA drive and aimed for the future I suppose...

Yeap! We got the same hard drive. So far I am am a happy camper.

Raxxal

Yep it's nice, even on my slow old box... Tho I forgot to install the VIA DMA module in the last kernel compile and it was really slow for a bit until I realised. Now with dma it's running nice. I didn't even really look what I was getting. I just needed an 80 gig drive and quick and that was what the guy had cheap (tho the seagate was a bit cheaper maybe but went for the WD). Didn't really know anything about the buffer or speed til I started playing with it...

I do like linux and the info. I ran hdparm and realized I wasn't getting dma and couldn't switch it on... So that let me track down the screw up with the kernel compile... :)