Re: 2.6.15-rc5-mm1

From: Jeff Garzik
Date: Thu Dec 08 2005 - 20:52:15 EST


Alexander E. Patrakov wrote:
Andrew Morton wrote:

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/people/akpm/patches/2.6/2.6.15-rc5/2.6.15-rc5-mm1/



I just noticed (maybe too late) that this kernel has the "pata_via" driver and decided to try it. It works here, but has one drawback: it is slower than the old "via82cxxx" IDE driver.

My configuration with the via82cxxx driver:

/dev/hda = disk, QUANTUM FIREBALLlct20
Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-5 T13 1321D revision 1

/dev/hdb = SAMSUNG CD-ROM SC-148F
Drive is old, supports only mdma2

There are also /dev/hdc and /dev/hdd, irrelevant here.

With the via82cxxx driver, I can get speed around 20 MB/s from /dev/hda. The pata_via driver downgrades this to 7 MB/s because it needlessly drops the disk to MWDMA2 mode.

That's expected, as libata currently limits all drives on a bus to the maximum speed of the slowest drive. That's needed by some controllers, but not all.

I'm pretty sure Alan plans to fix that (at least ISTR him mentioning it).

Jeff


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