Re: SATA kernel-buffered read VERY slow (not raid,Promise TX300 card); 2.6.23.1(vanilla)

From: Robert Hancock
Date: Thu Jan 03 2008 - 21:37:13 EST


Linda Walsh wrote:
Robert Hancock wrote:
Linda Walsh wrote:
Alan Cox wrote:
rate began falling; at 128k block-reads-at-a-time or larger, it drops below
20MB/s (only on buffered SATA).
Try disabling NCQ - see if you've got a drive with the 'NCQ = no
readahead' flaw.
http://linux-ata.org/faq.html#ncq
---
When drive initializes, dmesg says it has NCQ (depth 0/32)
Reading the queue_depth under /sys, shows a queuedepth of "1".

Looks like your controller (or at least the Linux driver) doesn't actually support NCQ.

2) Drive Advanced Power Management setting("-B") (write-only):
"HDIO_DRIVE_CMD failed: Input/output error"
3) Drive Acoustic ("-M"), read = " acoustic = not supported",
write = " HDIO_DRIVE_CMD:ACOUSTIC failed: Input/output error"

Not sure about these ones.. Does anything show up in dmesg when you do this?
---
Yes:
(for "-B", power-management)
ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
ata1.00: port_status 0x20200000
ata1.00: cmd ef/05:fe:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 0
res 51/04:fe:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x1 (device error)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata1: EH complete
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 1465149168 512-byte hardware sectors (750156 MB)
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA
----
(for "-M" acoustic management):
ata1.00: exception Emask 0x0 SAct 0x0 SErr 0x0 action 0x0
ata1.00: port_status 0x20200000
ata1.00: cmd ef/42:fe:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 tag 0 cdb 0x0 data 0
res 51/04:fe:00:00:00/00:00:00:00:00/40 Emask 0x1 (device error)
ata1.00: configured for UDMA/133
ata1: EH complete
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] 1465149168 512-byte hardware sectors (750156 MB)
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write Protect is off
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Mode Sense: 00 3a 00 00
sd 1:0:0:0: [sdb] Write cache: enabled, read cache: enabled, doesn't support DPO or FUA

Looks like the drive reports ERR/ABRT (command aborted), meaning it likely doesn't support those commands.

--
Robert Hancock Saskatoon, SK, Canada
To email, remove "nospam" from hancockr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Home Page: http://www.roberthancock.com/

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