It seems as if my RedHat 6.2 box experiences excessively high load averages when working with large files.  It “feels” as if I need to do some filesystem tuning.  Any ideas?  I am running Linux 2.2.20 on an AMD 400 MHZ processor  with an IDE 40 GB Maxtor hard-drive.

 

Here are some hdparm outputs:

 

hdparm –i:

 

/dev/hda:

 

 Model=Maxtor 54098H8, FwRev=DAC10SC0, SerialNo=K809LE6C

 Config={ Fixed }

 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=57

 BuffType=3(DualPortCache), BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off

 DblWordIO=no, OldPIO=2, DMA=yes, OldDMA=0

 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=-217054981, LBA=yes, LBAsects=80041248

 tDMA={min:120,rec:120}, DMA modes: mword0 mword1 mword2

 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, PIO modes: mode3 mode4

 UDMA modes: mode0 mode1 *mode2 mode3 mode4 mode5

 

Do I need to turn in DMA?  When I type:

 

hdparm –d I receive the following:

 

/dev/hda:

 using_dma    =  0 (off)

 

The man pages act as turning in DMA is optional and will not increase performance (how can this be?) And when you turn on DMA you should use –X34 which the man pages suggest is risky and unnecessary.  And it looks as if mode2 is already set.

 

Any ideas?  Could it be a problem with fsync() and the use of EXT2?

 

Paul Borghese

 

 

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