From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1P1IvJ-0005KE-1P for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:11:45 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 44049E09FC; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:10:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from out5.smtp.messagingengine.com (out5.smtp.messagingengine.com [66.111.4.29]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 31CBAE09FC for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 13:10:50 +0000 (UTC) Received: from compute3.internal (compute3.nyi.mail.srv.osa [10.202.2.43]) by gateway1.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 07FB1807; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:10:50 -0400 (EDT) Received: from frontend2.messagingengine.com ([10.202.2.161]) by compute3.internal (MEProxy); Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:10:50 -0400 DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha1; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=messagingengine.com; h=from:to:subject:date:references:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type:content-transfer-encoding:message-id; s=smtpout; bh=oEUkhBKrtsaoa02oqaT3uaFe+Ho=; b=LdTtlfIaYiKja06cx5dB//2HHhlcEJpQqJK+Qz8BmHGG0vhAiW59N0I0VvTkFAIDSxO/A+DHv4h7Phd4+oI7pDA7ucOq51GDw8i3xh0lXz+Ugp/G3k65q5YmS9fyOzxQiThYswP9HTHr921V36k57u7X0AxlFxqz9as1IUrGcm0= X-Sasl-enc: laDyRFvBk0S5L3t4sWVwxxBjKgA0NTypDX9tSJdC/l/Y 1285852249 Received: from hp.localnet (lvps83-169-5-6.dedicated.hosteurope.de [83.169.5.6]) by mail.messagingengine.com (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 48A4B5E6274 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:10:49 -0400 (EDT) From: Florian Philipp To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Subject: Re: [gentoo-user] Normal disk speed? Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 15:10:42 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.13.5 (Linux/2.6.34-gentoo-r6; KDE/4.4.5; x86_64; ; ) References: In-Reply-To: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: Text/Plain; charset="iso-8859-15" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Message-Id: <201009301510.43043.lists@f_philipp.fastmail.net> X-Archives-Salt: a8532eb6-f6c9-4a16-b904-08b14c4862ea X-Archives-Hash: f94e14e2ce6a92d6c1fb58aeadb1fa46 Am Donnerstag 30 September 2010, 12:58:36 schrieb Adam Carter: > Taring my mp3 collection from 2.5in 500MB internal sata drive (sda) to > esata 3.5in 500MB drive (sdb) and it seems slow. In vmstat i can see that > the external drive writes faster than the internal can read (external has > periods of inactivity) [...] > So 21221MB in 610 seconds = 35 MB/s > > # hdparm -t /dev/sda > > /dev/sda: > Timing buffered disk reads: 220 MB in 3.01 seconds = 73.14 MB/sec (77 > with --direct) [...] > So the should i expect filesystem (reiser3) and other overhead to cut the > read performance to less than half of what hdparm reports? Anything else i > can look at to speed it up? Im using CFQ io scheduler. 35 MB/s is a pretty normal value for a 5400 RPM laptop HDD. An HDD gets slower when you read the inner tracks. The angular velocity is constant (5400 RPM) while the tangential velocity gets lower with the radius. Inner tracks are mapped to the sectors at the far end of the partition table. That's why you should always put swap and system partitions at the front of your partition table and use its end for bulk data. I guess your mp3 collection is stored somewhere at the middle or end of your internal disk (inner tracks) while your external disk is nearly empty and therefore stores data on the outer tracks. Hope this helps. Florian Philipp