[PLUG] A poorly-performing hard drive

[J Black]

On Thu, 2004-01-22 at 21:22, Evan Heidtmann wrote:
> Just for grins, I decided to do a benchmark test on my big shiny new
> 120G WD. I came up with some weird numbers:
> 
> # hdparm -tT /dev/hdb
> 
> /dev/hdb:
>  Timing buffer-cache reads:   1568 MB in  2.00 seconds = 784.00 MB/sec
>  Timing buffered disk reads:   22 MB in  3.25 seconds =   6.77 MB/sec
> 
> I was expecting the second number to be over 20MB/s, because my old 15G
> produces around 18 MB/s. What does this mean?

Ooh, that's pitiful!

Are you asking what does it all mean, or are you asking why your
buffered disk read throughput is so low?  I get 40 MB/sec from my WD and
57 MB/sec from my Maxtor.  

Were there other particularly active processes running on your system?
Are you using the ribbon cable that came with your hard drive?
Are you sure your motherboard supports UDMA100 or UDMA133?
Did you remember to remove the big red flag that says "Remove before
flight"?  (Just kidding...)

Might be helpful to post the output of # hdparm /dev/hdb

- Jesse