> I think my real reason for posting this is I'm unhappy with my IO > performance. I've got a 320GB Seagate SATAII drive. How much better > can I do with conventional hard disks? Is there a test I can run to > make sure my Seagate is performing as it should? How about you go to single user mode issue the command hdparm -tT /dev/<yourdisk> three times, and post the results here?
Second, here are some basic hints about disk performance. 1) Disk speed is faster in the beginning of the disk (because the beginning of the disk is stored in the outer border of the disk, which has greater linear velocity than the inner border). It may be a good idea to put you swap partition first (and don't exaggerate on its size, since it is occupying valuable space in the beginning of the disk), then your main partition, then other partitions. 2) Your filesystem should not be too full; one of the problems this causes is fragmentation 3) If your filesystem is very old, it is probably fragmented. While fragmentation in LInux is a much smaller problem than in Windows (specially Windows 95/98/ME), it happens over time, specially if the filesystem is too full. I don't know how easily you can defragment in Linux though. Have other people in this list tried sys-fs/shake? I am afraid of it because it is ~x86 and would operate on important areas of my filesystem. 4) file access is slower if there are too many files in the directory. Consider cleaning up your system (such as by wiping out software you never use, and unmerging software you rarely use after creating a package of it with quickpkg) 5) Use lighter-weight software such as Xfce (yeah, obvious).
