Bug 280676

Summary:	Overly slow harddrive
Product:	Gentoo Linux	Reporter:	Nico Schlömer <nico.schloemer>
Component:	[OLD] Unspecified	Assignee:	Gentoo Linux bug wranglers <bug-wranglers>
Status:	RESOLVED NEEDINFO
Severity:	normal
Priority:	High
Version:	unspecified
Hardware:	AMD64
OS:	Linux
Whiteboard:
Package list:		Runtime testing required:	---
Attachments:	dmesg output Kernel configuration with ATA SFF

Description Nico Schlömer 2009-08-07 17:17:09 UTC

Hi,

chances are that this is not a Gentoo specific problem, but I thought I just give it a start as I don't know where else to post.

Now, I have that Macbook 3,1 with an ICH8 chipset and a Fujitsu harddrive. As from what MacOS's hardware analysis tells me, the latter is "AHCI enabled". However I don't manage to get a kernel started with ATA SFF support, which is supposed to be obsoleted by AHCI.

I have sdparm configured and running, and the hard drive is *incredibly* slow. No idea how to debug.

Suggestions, anyone?

Cheers,
Nico

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1 Wormo (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2009-08-08 06:28:57 UTC

How about starting with posting any kernel messages regarding drive controller and drive detection? Also, have you tried checking drive health with smartmontools? Sometimes drives get weirdly slow when the drive is starting to get sick.

Comment 2 Lars Wendler (Polynomial-C) (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2009-08-08 09:10:44 UTC

Having your kernel's config attached to this bug as well as your dmesg output might be helpful as well.

Comment 3 Nico Schlömer 2009-08-10 11:34:57 UTC

Thanks guys for the hints.

I performed an extensive smartmon test, and there were no errors found. Also, when starting MacOS (which resides on another partition) it all seems to work out pretty fine, so I guess I can be confident that the drive is not breaking down on me.

Coming back to AHCI (which may or may not be related): From MacOS, I get the drive info

============================ *snip* ============================
Intel ICH8-M AHCI:

  Vendor:	Intel
  Product:	ICH8-M AHCI
  Speed:	1.5 Gigabit
  Description:	AHCI Version 1.10 Supported

FUJITSU MHY2120BH:

  Capacity:	111,79 GB
  Model:	FUJITSU MHY2120BH
  Revision:	0081000D
  Serial Number:	K439T7B2BL6G
  Native Command Queuing:	Yes
  Queue Depth:	32
  Removable Media:	No
  Detachable Drive:	No
  BSD Name:	disk0
  Mac OS 9 Drivers:	No
  Partition Map Type:	GPT (GUID Partition Table)
  S.M.A.R.T. status:	Verified
============================ *snap* ============================

When I disable the (Linux) kernel option "ATA SFF support" (thus relying fully on AHCI), the drive wouldn't be recognized at all.

I attach dmesg output and the kernel config.

Also, do you guys know of a good way to actually measure hard drive speed? I tried `hdparm -tT` but felt that didn't give me reliable numbers. Hm, there was that Phoronix test suite, too..

Cheers,
Nico

Comment 4 Nico Schlömer 2009-08-10 11:35:27 UTC

Created attachment 200833 [details]
dmesg output

Comment 5 Nico Schlömer 2009-08-10 11:36:06 UTC

Created attachment 200835 [details]
Kernel configuration with ATA SFF

Comment 6 Nico Schlömer 2009-08-15 09:15:55 UTC

Okay so, the fact that AHCI is not recognized might be attributed to the fact that I don't boot EFI natively, but take the rEFIt workaround and then go through Grub. So, that might not directly be the reason for the slowness.

Other suggestions, anyone?

Cheers,
Nico

Comment 7 Peter Alfredsen (RETIRED) gentoo-dev

2009-09-07 21:56:39 UTC

Re-open if you come up with some more information on this problem. At the moment, most we can do is guess (badly).