Re: poor ATA disk speed with ICH2

On Fri, Sep 10, 2004 at 11:38:03AM +0200, Angelo Turetta wrote:
> >----- Original Message ----- 
> >From: "Kevin Oberman" <oberman_at_es.net>
> >Sent: Thursday, September 09, 2004 10:28 PM
> >
> > While the test is running, the disk being written to "sings" with the
> > frequency somewhat dependent on the size of the write. On read, I get
> > silence. When I copy my full disk (if=ad0 of=ad2), I can clearly hear
> > the sound of the actuator moving the heads constantly toward the end of
> > the backup. I assume that they are being returned to track 0 on a
> > repeated basis.
> 
> This sounds a lot like thermal recalibration seeks, to me. Except it's
> something modern hardware is supposed to need very rarely, if not at all...

Very rarely *if* there is sufficient cooling - if the disk becomes too
warm it is needed.
One harddisk I have was not only quite loud, but also slower than it
ought to have been. After I installed an extra fan in the case blowing
air directly at the disk, it not only became much quieter, but also
noticeable faster. (The airflow around the disk was fairly bad before
that.)  I assume that the extra noise and slowness was simply thermal
recalibration trying to compensate for the disk being somewhat
overheated. 

> Might be the effect of some power-saving setting intruduced in 5.x ?
> (or maybe the new ATA code is actually so fast it's overheating your disks
> :-) :-)
> 
> Angelo Turetta

-- 
<Insert your favourite quote here.>
Erik Trulsson
ertr1013_at_student.uu.se