Low performance of the IDE on the SIS550

[Christopher Bergeron]

Have you tried hdparm /dev/whateverX (or hdparm -t /dev/whateverX)?  This will give you a more
accurate result (IMHO) and it will allow you to set the DMA settings
on the drive.

-CB



Thursday, October 3, 2002, 8:19:00 AM, you wrote:

YG> Hi everyone,
YG>                 I have a board based on the SIS550 (Vortex86 @167 MHz) and I wantd to 
YG> setup a NFS file server that is capable to sustain 10 MBytes/s. But the 
YG> problem is that the IDE interface seems very slow in writing. I patch my 
YG> kernel (2.4.19) with the patch for the 5513 and now the controller is 
YG> recognise as a ATA-100a but when I try to put the controller un UDMA mode 
YG> mode 5, I got a message from hdparm that told that it is not supported.

YG> Anyway, with the UDMA mode 2 I should have the performance that I need. I 
YG> look on header of the ide connector and the burst when writing seems to be 
YG> quick anough but between each of these bursts I have a hole of 5-6 seconds.

YG> I test the speed with theses commands:

YG> time dd if=/dev/zero of=zero bs=1k count=100k           -> WRITING
->> 30 sec

YG> time dd if=zero of=/dev/null bs=1k count=100k           -> READING
->> 10 sec

YG> I try all configuration possible (hdparm) for the harddisk and 3 MB/s is 
YG> the best result that I got. In PIO mode 4, I only got a 1.5 MB/s !
YG> I performed theses tests on different architecture and I got the following 
YG> results:
YG>         SC520           PIO (ISA)       ->       1.63 MB/s
YG>         SC1210          PIO             ->       4.54 MB/s      -> I was unable to enable the DMA ????
YG>         P133            ATA-33          ->       5.50 MB/s
YG>         PII-266         ATA-33          ->      17.83 MB/s
YG>         PII-400         ATA-33          ->      20.54 MB/s
YG>         C3-667          ATA-100 ->      23.05 MB/s

YG> Does anyone have an idea why:
YG>         1. I cannot enable the UDMA mode 5 ?
YG>         2. I only got 3 MBytes/s in writing ?



YG> Thanks !

YG> Yves

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