Re: IDE freeze for seconds

Johnny Tevessen (j.tevessen@gmx.net)
Fri, 27 Nov 1998 16:40:10 +0100


Quoting Mark Lord (mlord@pobox.com):

> That might work if the FS ran on a separate thread.
> But under Linux, the "fs thread" *is* the application process.

mmh..

> The reason other tasks may also be held up during the spin-up
> is that the disk-queue is blocked on the r/w request that
> caused the spin-up, and other requests for the same MAJOR
> (IDE interface) cannot proceed until it is serviced.

So even the other one (master/slave) is blocked? Sorry, but
this is really *bad*. One of my disks (a ~730MB Quantum)
needs almost 8 seconds to spin up. It is configured as slave,
and if the master (a faster Seagate) would have to wait this
time, it would be a serious drawback,

> Other IDE interfaces are free to continue working in parallel.

4 HDs on 2 controllers -- so one is always innocently blocked.
Please don't say I should switch to SCSI. I would, but 1st I
already have these IDE controllers and want them to work.

2nd SCSI costs $$.

My fault, I really thought the fs I/O thru the cache was asynchronous.

ciao,
johnny

-- 
Trust no-one.

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