IDE Performance lack !

IDE Performance lack !

[Guido Stepken]

Hi !

RedHat 7.1 - IDE IBM 41.1 GIG
Update to 2.4.5 -> noticed, that hdparm -t /dev/hda went down from 10 
MByte/sec to 1.9 MByte/sec
Any special Options, beside ide-scsi driver activated ..

Anybody noticed the same problem ? Any clues ?

tnx in advance ...

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Jaswinder Singh]

>
> RedHat 7.1 - IDE IBM 41.1 GIG
> Update to 2.4.5 -> noticed, that hdparm -t /dev/hda went down from 10
> MByte/sec to 1.9 MByte/sec
> Any special Options, beside ide-scsi driver activated ..
>
> Anybody noticed the same problem ? Any clues ?
>

yes , i am also not happy with IDE performance of Linux . That why i dont
use Hard disk in my Target machines ;)

When ever i copy big data (around 400 to 700 MB ) from one partion to
another my machine do not response at all (i can not work on another shell)
during data transfer.

Thank you ,

Best Regards,

Jaswinder.
--
These are my opinions not 3Di.

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Chris Wedgwood]

On Sat, May 26, 2001 at 05:16:42PM -0700, Jaswinder Singh wrote:

    When ever i copy big data (around 400 to 700 MB ) from one
    partion to another my machine do not response at all (i can not
    work on another shell) during data transfer.

Both paritions on the same spindle? That's going to suck no matter
what you do... but it shouldn't be as bad as you describe. Have you
tried 2.2.x ?



  --cw

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Jaswinder Singh]

"Chris Wedgwood" <cw@f00f.org> wrote:

> On Sat, May 26, 2001 at 05:16:42PM -0700, Jaswinder Singh wrote:
>
>     When ever i copy big data (around 400 to 700 MB ) from one
>     partion to another my machine do not response at all (i can not
>     work on another shell) during data transfer.
>
> Both paritions on the same spindle? That's going to suck no matter
> what you do...

I am having only one harddisk of 20 Gb , so i made four partitions on it.

> but it shouldn't be as bad as you describe.

But it is more bad then i described , especially when i do telnet/ssh from
my home .

I am not able to understand why Linux read and/or write harddisk after some
time (after few hours ) , harddisk read/write leds keep on glowing for few
minutes , even though nobody working on it and machine is in idle state.

>Have you tried 2.2.x ?
>

yes i am taking about 2.2.12 .

And in my 2.4.2 :-

Harddisk read-write problem is also there , during harddisk read-write
activity i took two hdparams and i got :-
i . 963.76 kB/sec
ii. 1.05 MB/sec

and when my machine becomes normal i got :-

9.07 MB/sec

and after hdparam -d1 i got :-

9.55 MB/sec

But my problem is why linux boxes do not response for few seconds
(sometimes) and especially during telnet/ssh it looks more worst and looks
similar to Microsoft Windows :(

there is problem in scheduling or what ?

Thank you,

Best Regards,

Jaswinder.
--
These are my opinions not 3Di.

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Miquel van Smoorenburg]

In article <00c701c0e6d8$2b28ea40$4aa6b3d0@Toshiba>,
Jaswinder Singh <jaswinder.singh@3disystems.com> wrote:
>I am not able to understand why Linux read and/or write harddisk after some
>time (after few hours ) , harddisk read/write leds keep on glowing for few
>minutes , even though nobody working on it and machine is in idle state.

Are you sure it is idle. It might be running something from cron-
say 'updatedb' or similar. That will cause a lot of disk i/o,
and _ofcourse_ performance will be bad then - the machine is
doing a lot of other things.

It might also be that you don't have enough memory and the
machine is swapping itself to death. Running netscape or
mozilla perhaps? These are known to blow themselves up to
50-100 MB (!). That will cause the exact symptoms you're seeing.

>>Have you tried 2.2.x ?
>>
>
>yes i am taking about 2.2.12 .

2.2.12 is old. In my experience, 2.2.19 is the first really
good 2.2 kernel. Especially in low-memory situations like
you might be experiencing..

>And in my 2.4.2 :-

2.4.2 isn't all that good either.. 2.4.x doesn't have VM sorted
out just yet

>and when my machine becomes normal i got :-
>9.07 MB/sec

Sounds about right for a non-UDMA disk.

>But my problem is why linux boxes do not response for few seconds
>(sometimes) and especially during telnet/ssh it looks more worst and looks
>similar to Microsoft Windows :(
>there is problem in scheduling or what ?

Try 2.2.19

Mike.

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Jaswinder Singh]

"Miquel van Smoorenburg" <miquels@cistron-office.nl> wrote:

>
> Are you sure it is idle. It might be running something from cron-
> say 'updatedb' or similar. That will cause a lot of disk i/o,
> and _ofcourse_ performance will be bad then - the machine is
> doing a lot of other things.
>

I am the only user who use my linux boxes , i never use cron , and i have no
relation with database at all.

> It might also be that you don't have enough memory and the
> machine is swapping itself to death. Running netscape or
> mozilla perhaps? These are known to blow themselves up to
> 50-100 MB (!). That will cause the exact symptoms you're seeing.
>

I never go to X-Windows , i do all my work from console.

cat /proc/meminfo
                total:    used:    free:  shared: buffers:  cached:
Mem:  114475008 111816704  2658304  5234688 68067328 24711168
Swap: 583954432  2654208 581300224
MemTotal:    111792 kB
MemFree:       2596 kB
MemShared:     5112 kB
Buffers:      66472 kB
Cached:       24132 kB
SwapTotal:   570268 kB
SwapFree:    567676 kB

>
> 2.4.2 isn't all that good either.. 2.4.x doesn't have VM sorted
> out just yet
>

may be this problem of VM as suggested by Mark Hahn.

Thank you,

Jaswinder.
--
These are my opinions not 3Di.

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Chris Wedgwood]

On Sun, May 27, 2001 at 11:09:25AM -0700, Jaswinder Singh wrote:

    But my problem is why linux boxes do not response for few seconds
    (sometimes) and especially during telnet/ssh it looks more worst
    and looks similar to Microsoft Windows :(
    
    there is problem in scheduling or what ?

Sounds like IO starvation, if your reading from one partition to the
other, it's going to suck for IO --- the head will be going nuts.
Also, 2.2.x has a single IO queue for writes (doesn't it?), so that won't
help.

What if you dd a file from one partition to another, is the problem
lesser with larger buffers, say 64M or so?

What about dd from /dev/zero to a partition, so you get heavy writes,
does this also suck?





   --cw

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Jakob Østergaard]

On Sat, May 26, 2001 at 05:16:42PM -0700, Jaswinder Singh wrote:
> >
> > RedHat 7.1 - IDE IBM 41.1 GIG
> > Update to 2.4.5 -> noticed, that hdparm -t /dev/hda went down from 10
> > MByte/sec to 1.9 MByte/sec
> > Any special Options, beside ide-scsi driver activated ..
> >
> > Anybody noticed the same problem ? Any clues ?
> >
> 
> yes , i am also not happy with IDE performance of Linux . That why i dont
> use Hard disk in my Target machines ;)
> 
> When ever i copy big data (around 400 to 700 MB ) from one partion to
> another my machine do not response at all (i can not work on another shell)
> during data transfer.

The answer for both of you is:

  hdparm -d1 /dev/hd{whatever}

Without DMA enabled, performance is going to suck.  1.9 MB/sec is actually pretty
good without DMA   ;)

-- 
................................................................
:   jakob@unthought.net   : And I see the elder races,         :
:.........................: putrid forms of man                :
:   Jakob Østergaard      : See him rise and claim the earth,  :
:        OZ9ABN           : his downfall is at hand.           :
:.........................:............{Konkhra}...............:

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[francois.cami]

> The answer for both of you is:
> 
>   hdparm -d1 /dev/hd{whatever}
> 
> Without DMA enabled, performance is going to suck.  1.9 MB/sec is actually pretty
> good without DMA   ;)

I agree.

I get around 4MB/s without and 35.75MB/s with...
hdparm -c3 -d1 -m16 /dev/hda
on a KT133 (A7V) and 45GB IBM DTLA hard drive.

no data corruption, even with a sblive, an scsi
adapter, 2 hard drives...

François Cami 

> --
> .................................................................
> :   jakob@unthought.net   : And I see the elder races,         :
> :.........................: putrid forms of man                :
> :   Jakob Østergaard      : See him rise and claim the earth,  :
> :        OZ9ABN           : his downfall is at hand.           :
> :.........................:............{Konkhra}...............:
> -

-- 

All that is gold does not glitter,
	Not all those who wander are lost,
The old that is strong does not wither,
	Deep roots are not touched by the frost.
>From the ashes a fire shall be woken,
	A light from the shadows shall spring,
Renewed shall the blade that was broken,
	The crownless again shall be king.

		The Riddle of Strider
		JRR Tolkien

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Jaswinder Singh]

From: "Jakob Østergaard" <jakob@unthought.net> wrote :
>
> The answer for both of you is:
>
>   hdparm -d1 /dev/hd{whatever}
>
> Without DMA enabled, performance is going to suck.  1.9 MB/sec is actually
pretty
> good without DMA   ;)
>

i think DMA or PCI is not my solution , atleast :)

Thank you,

Best Regards,

Jaswinder.
--
These are my opinions not 3Di.

Re: IDE Performance lack !

[Marc Schiffbauer]

* Guido Stepken schrieb am 26.05.01 um 22:19 Uhr:
> Hi !
> 
> RedHat 7.1 - IDE IBM 41.1 GIG
> Update to 2.4.5 -> noticed, that hdparm -t /dev/hda went down from 10 
> MByte/sec to 1.9 MByte/sec
> Any special Options, beside ide-scsi driver activated ..
> 
> Anybody noticed the same problem ? Any clues ?
> 
> tnx in advance ...

Hi Guido,

This is a 20.1 GB Seagate Barracuda (with hdparm -d1)


homer:~ # hdparm -t /dev/hda
 
/dev/hda:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  2.74 seconds = 23.36 MB/sec
homer:~ #


Did you turn on dma-mode?

-Marc

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