Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Sata hard drive speed question

[Dale <rdalek1967@gmail.com>]

Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
> On 13/12/2018 11:18, Dale wrote:
>> Nikos Chantziaras wrote:
>>>
>>> I'd recommend just using mkfs instead of using your own parameters:
>>>
>>> mkfs -t ext4 /dev/sdb1
>>>
>>> It will use the parameters from /etc/mke2fs.conf. This is the safest
>>> way to format a partition.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> May try that next, if it ever finishes this current attempt.  It's been
>> a hour for the current format attempt.  I won't be surprised if it gives
>> up too.
>
> Did you check for any errors in dmesg?
>
>
>


OK.  This is what I did this time.  First, I dd'd the drive, the first
several gigs worth to be sure the partition table etc is gone.  Second,
I ran portprobe for it to see the partition was gone.  It would still
show up in /proc/partitions.  I then used gdisk to create the
partition.  I might add, cgdisk would not run.  It spit out a error and
quit.  Then I ran partprobe again.  May have ran it twice.  Then it
showed up in /proc/partitons as it should.  Then I used your advice and
used mkfs -t ext4 and other options for label etc to format the
partition.  That gave me this:


root@fireball / # time mkfs -v -t ext4 -m 0 -L 8tb-backup /dev/sde1
mke2fs 1.43.9 (8-Feb-2018)
fs_types for mke2fs.conf resolution: 'ext4', 'big'
Filesystem label=8tb-backup
OS type: Linux
Block size=4096 (log=2)
Fragment size=4096 (log=2)
Stride=0 blocks, Stripe width=0 blocks
244191232 inodes, 1953506385 blocks
0 blocks (0.00%) reserved for the super user
First data block=0
Maximum filesystem blocks=4102029312
59617 block groups
32768 blocks per group, 32768 fragments per group
4096 inodes per group
Filesystem UUID: ebcd0ad4-f25f-466e-9b5c-acac33886df0
Superblock backups stored on blocks:
        32768, 98304, 163840, 229376, 294912, 819200, 884736, 1605632,
2654208,
        4096000, 7962624, 11239424, 20480000, 23887872, 71663616, 78675968,
        102400000, 214990848, 512000000, 550731776, 644972544, 1934917632

Allocating group tables: done                           
Writing inode tables: done                           
Creating journal (262144 blocks): done
Writing superblocks and filesystem accounting information: done      


real    37m50.570s
user    0m0.121s
sys     0m1.639s
root@fireball / #


Before you freak out, I did move the drive to another port when I
changed the cable.  It moved from sdb to sde.  I always confirm using
smartctrl -i until I find the right device. 

After all that, I get this:


    204,807,599 100%  120.79MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7946, ir-chk=3715/13065)

120,136,339 100%   77.20MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7947, ir-chk=3714/13065)

119,445,345 100%   94.38MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7948, ir-chk=3713/13065)

109,298,753 100%  100.81MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7949, ir-chk=3712/13065)

116,704,897 100%   82.38MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7950, ir-chk=3711/13065)

110,075,610 100%   92.49MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7951, ir-chk=3710/13065)

115,757,218 100%  106.46MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7952, ir-chk=3709/13065)

111,693,138 100%  128.49MB/s    0:00:00 (xfr#7953, ir-chk=3708/13065)

208,458,508 100%   56.93MB/s    0:00:03 (xfr#7954, ir-chk=3707/13065)

113,847,275 100%   88.92MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7955, ir-chk=3706/13065)

181,249,801 100%   79.22MB/s    0:00:02 (xfr#7956, ir-chk=3705/13065)

215,941,705 100%  146.99MB/s    0:00:01 (xfr#7957, ir-chk=3704/13065)


Now I knew this wasn't the fastest drive out there.  It puts a little
more on living a long life at the expense of a little speed.  However,
this is MUCH MUCH better than I was getting.  Since I have a good size
drive now, I'm backing up /home and excluding things I don't care about
like cache and files in the trash etc.  It's a progressive thing. 

At this point, I don't know if it was the cable, me running partprobe or
both that did this.  It could also be running mkfs instead of mkfs.ext4
as well.  Who knows.  I'm just glad to have some SPEED.  O_O 

Thanks much to all. 

Dale

:-)  :-)