Hard Disk going a lot slower now...

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Hello Everyone,

My secondary computer recently got fried, so I had to either
rebuild my
first computer from scratch (almost), or just buy an off the
shelf
model.  Since I've been ill lately, I decided on option #2. 
I bought a
Gateway system with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor 4200+
(Dual Core), 2
GB of RAM, an integrated nVidia GeForce 6100 video chipset,
and a
Seagate 250 GB SATA II HDD.  It has other features, but they
are not
important, right now.  Oh, and it came preloaded with
Windows XP Media
Center Edition.

What is important is that I used Arconis Disk Director Suite
to resize
the massive Windows partition (there are actually two, I
didn't resize
the "rescue" partition), and move them so I could
have about 128 MB of
unallocated space right at the beginning of the drive, and a
lot of
space at the end.

The reason for this was to create a dual boot system with
Windows and
Linux.  For a little while, there was no slowdown - the
drive was still
quite fast.  Then I tried to use hdparm (a Linux tool for
viewing and
setting drive parameters).  I noticed that DMA was turned
off in Linux,
so I tried to turn it on, and got an error.  Since then,
this drive has
been going very slow - much more slowly than my USB hard
drives (and
they are limited to 480 MB / s).

I suspect that what I did in Linux turned off DMA for this
drive, though
it could be something else.  Any ideas or suggestions would
be welcome.

Regards,
Chris

PS: I thought I'd post this here because it involves both
Gentoo and
Windows.

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What is the output of:

# hdparm -d /dev/hda

Please check here for more tips and info:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Use_hdparm
_to_improve_IDE_device_performance

grtz,

Aniruddha

On Sunday 26 November 2006 15:34, Chris Walters wrote:
> Hello Everyone,
>
> My secondary computer recently got fried, so I had to
either rebuild my
> first computer from scratch (almost), or just buy an
off the shelf
> model.  Since I've been ill lately, I decided on option
#2.  I bought a
> Gateway system with an AMD Athlon 64 X2 Processor 4200+
(Dual Core), 2
> GB of RAM, an integrated nVidia GeForce 6100 video
chipset, and a
> Seagate 250 GB SATA II HDD.  It has other features, but
they are not
> important, right now.  Oh, and it came preloaded with
Windows XP Media
> Center Edition.
>
> What is important is that I used Arconis Disk Director
Suite to resize
> the massive Windows partition (there are actually two,
I didn't resize
> the "rescue" partition), and move them so I
could have about 128 MB of
> unallocated space right at the beginning of the drive,
and a lot of
> space at the end.
>
> The reason for this was to create a dual boot system
with Windows and
> Linux.  For a little while, there was no slowdown - the
drive was still
> quite fast.  Then I tried to use hdparm (a Linux tool
for viewing and
> setting drive parameters).  I noticed that DMA was
turned off in Linux,
> so I tried to turn it on, and got an error.  Since
then, this drive has
> been going very slow - much more slowly than my USB
hard drives (and
> they are limited to 480 MB / s).
>
> I suspect that what I did in Linux turned off DMA for
this drive, though
> it could be something else.  Any ideas or suggestions
would be welcome.
>
> Regards,
> Chris
>
> PS: I thought I'd post this here because it involves
both Gentoo and
> Windows.

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On 11/26/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
> I suspect that what I did in Linux turned off DMA for
this drive, though
> it could be something else.  Any ideas or suggestions
would be welcome.

DMA is always enabled for SATA drives.  There is nothing
special
needed to enable it, although you do need to make sure that
you have
the right driver compiled in your kernel for the IO chipset.
 What
does "hdparm -t /dev/sda" report?  If this seems
low, post the outputs
of lspci and dmesg.

-Richard
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Richard Fish wrote:
> On 11/26/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
>> I suspect that what I did in Linux turned off DMA
for this drive, though
>> it could be something else.  Any ideas or
suggestions would be welcome.
> 
> DMA is always enabled for SATA drives.  There is
nothing special
> needed to enable it, although you do need to make sure
that you have
> the right driver compiled in your kernel for the IO
chipset.  What
> does "hdparm -t /dev/sda" report?  If this
seems low, post the outputs
> of lspci and dmesg.
> 
> -Richard

Hi Richard,

Well, in Gentoo, the results of "hdparm -t
/dev/sda" were around 65 MB /
second.  dmesg shows the drive in UDMA/133 mode, and I
didn't bother
with lspci.  In Windows, however, the benchmarks are quite
different -
around 4300-4600 KB / second.  At least I know the problem
is not with
the drive.

That must be where the problem lies, since the 65 MB / s is
about what
Windows was reporting before I repartitioned it and
installed Gentoo -
the change wasn't immediate, but it was soon after.  This is
one of the
things I hate about Windows...

Regards,
Chris
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On 11/26/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
> Well, in Gentoo, the results of "hdparm -t
/dev/sda" were around 65 MB /
> second.  dmesg shows the drive in UDMA/133 mode, and I
didn't bother
> with lspci.  In Windows, however, the benchmarks are
quite different -
> around 4300-4600 KB / second.  At least I know the
problem is not with
> the drive.

Well one thing to keep in mind here is that disk throughput
is not
constant everywhere.  That 65MB/s is on low-numbered
cylinders,
typically near the outside edge of the drive, where the
linear
velocity is highest.  That same drive may only give
20-30MB/s on the
inside cylinders.

What are you using to benchmark the drive under windows?  Is
it
measuring raw disk throughput, or through the NTFS
filesystem?

-Richard
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Richard Fish wrote:
> On 11/26/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
>> Well, in Gentoo, the results of "hdparm -t
/dev/sda" were around 65 MB /
>> second.  dmesg shows the drive in UDMA/133 mode,
and I didn't bother
>> with lspci.  In Windows, however, the benchmarks
are quite different -
>> around 4300-4600 KB / second.  At least I know the
problem is not with
>> the drive.
> 
> Well one thing to keep in mind here is that disk
throughput is not
> constant everywhere.  That 65MB/s is on low-numbered
cylinders,
> typically near the outside edge of the drive, where the
linear
> velocity is highest.  That same drive may only give
20-30MB/s on the
> inside cylinders.
> 
> What are you using to benchmark the drive under
windows?  Is it
> measuring raw disk throughput, or through the NTFS
filesystem?
> 
> -Richard

Hello Richard,

I would assume that the two benchmark programs I am using to
measure the
drive performance under windows go through windows, and thus
the NTFS
interface.  They are Dr. Hardware and FreshDiagnose.  The
second one
showed a write speed as quoted above, and a read speed of
about 280 MB
per second...  Though the same one reported a read speed of
about 900+
MB per second for my USB drive (not really possible, since
the maximum
speed for USB 2.0 is about 480 MB / second).

This is very frustrating.  At first the drive was quite
fast, under
windows and now it is extremely slow...  I asked about this
in a windows
xp pro group, and so far no one is touching it.

Regards,
Chris
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> I would assume that the two benchmark programs I am
using to measure the
> drive performance under windows go through windows, and
thus the NTFS
> interface.  They are Dr. Hardware and FreshDiagnose. 
The second one
> showed a write speed as quoted above, and a read speed
of about 280 MB
> per second...  Though the same one reported a read
speed of about 900+
> MB per second for my USB drive (not really possible,
since the maximum
> speed for USB 2.0 is about 480 MB / second).
Hi Chris,

A more realistic speed for a HD is about 60-90MB/second...
It's hardware 
limited. So your values are quite off, regardless of the OS
and the 
filesystem.

Greets Glider
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Ken Gypen wrote:
> 
>> I would assume that the two benchmark programs I am
using to measure the
>> drive performance under windows go through windows,
and thus the NTFS
>> interface.  They are Dr. Hardware and
FreshDiagnose.  The second one
>> showed a write speed as quoted above, and a read
speed of about 280 MB
>> per second...  Though the same one reported a read
speed of about 900+
>> MB per second for my USB drive (not really
possible, since the maximum
>> speed for USB 2.0 is about 480 MB / second).
> Hi Chris,
> 
> A more realistic speed for a HD is about
60-90MB/second... It's hardware 
> limited. So your values are quite off, regardless of
the OS and the 
> filesystem.
> 
> 

Yeah - when doing this sort of thing ensure you are using
files at least 
2x(size of RAM) - otherwise you can end up just measuring
memory access 
speed.

Cheers

Mark

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On 11/27/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
> showed a write speed as quoted above, and a read speed
of about 280 MB
> per second...

This seems more like the SATA-II interface speed of
~300MB/s...

> Though the same one reported a read speed of about 900+
> MB per second for my USB drive (not really possible,
since the maximum
> speed for USB 2.0 is about 480 MB / second).

Yeah, bogus.  And remember that 480 is megabits/sec
(Mb/s)...actually
more like 60MiB/s maximum throughput (although I have yet to
get more
than 29MiB/s from any USB drive).

> This is very frustrating.  At first the drive was quite
fast, under
> windows and now it is extremely slow...  I asked about
this in a windows
> xp pro group, and so far no one is touching it.

Well I would first poke around in the device manager for the
SATA
interface and make sure it is not in PIO mode.  Then check
the
property pages of the disk and make sure that write caching
is
enabled.
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Richard Fish wrote:
> On 11/27/06, Chris Walters <cjw2004dcomcast.net> wrote:
>> showed a write speed as quoted above, and a read
speed of about 280 MB
>> per second...
> 
> This seems more like the SATA-II interface speed of
~300MB/s...
> 
>> Though the same one reported a read speed of about
900+
>> MB per second for my USB drive (not really
possible, since the maximum
>> speed for USB 2.0 is about 480 MB / second).
> 
> Yeah, bogus.  And remember that 480 is megabits/sec
(Mb/s)...actually
> more like 60MiB/s maximum throughput (although I have
yet to get more
> than 29MiB/s from any USB drive).
> 
>> This is very frustrating.  At first the drive was
quite fast, under
>> windows and now it is extremely slow...  I asked
about this in a windows
>> xp pro group, and so far no one is touching it.
> 
> Well I would first poke around in the device manager
for the SATA
> interface and make sure it is not in PIO mode.  Then
check the
> property pages of the disk and make sure that write
caching is
> enabled.

Hello Richard,

I am beginning to suspect that the quality on those
"FreshDevices" is
quite low, and will probably remove them.

I checked the drive and my IDE/ATAPI drivers - there are
exactly two
primary channels and two secondary channels.  On each of the
primary
channels is a device in slot 0.  The first one is operating
in DMA 4
mode (I suspect that this is my DVD-RW drive), while the
second one is
operating in PIO mode.  I couldn't find a way to change that
from the
device manager, since it is set to use "DMA if
available".  So that is
very likely the problem with the windows slow down.  Any
ideas on how I
can fix this without using the "rescue disc" that
came with the computer?

Regards,
Chris

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