[sclug] disk transfer rates (was) Newbie, partitioning 120Gb HDD - recommendations?

[Alex Butcher]

On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Tom Dawes-Gamble wrote:

> On Wed, 2005-01-19 at 16:26 +0000, Alex Butcher wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Jan 2005, Tom Dawes-Gamble wrote:
>>> So how do I tell hdparm to test the inner or outer part of the device?
>>
>> You can't, AFAICT. It always reads from the beginning of the block device
>> you specify. This was why I had it report speeds for /dev/hde1 (in the fast
>> zone) and /dev/hde9 (in the mid- to slow zone).
>
> Isn't that a limitation?

Generally, hdparm is just used to verify that drive performance is in
roughly the right ballpark (i.e. DMA enabled, SCSI terminated properly,
etc). Seeing as lots of HDD spec sheets only give peak transfer rates, it's
less useful testing any part of the disc other than the fastest.

> Tom.

Best Regards,
Alex.
-- 
Alex Butcher      Brainbench MVP for Internet Security: www.brainbench.com
Bristol, UK                      Need reliable and secure network systems?
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