[gentoo-user] Absymal IDE performance with gentoo-sources-2.6.22 and why hda instead of sda?

[Alexander Skwar]

Hello.

Yesterday, I installed gentoo-sources-2.6.22. When I now boot this new
kernel, I notice that all of a sudden my SATA disk is addressed with
/dev/hda, whereas it used to be addressed with /dev/sda in 2.6.21. Why's
that?

But much more important: The IDE performance is now extremely bad.

,----[ hdparm  -tT  /dev/hda, kernel 2.6.22 ]
| /dev/hda:
|  Timing cached reads:   2414 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1208.28 MB/sec
|  Timing buffered disk reads:    8 MB in  3.99 seconds =   2.00 MB/sec
`----

With 2.6.21, it's A LOT faster:

,----[ hdparm -tT /dev/sda, kernel 2.6.21 ]
| /dev/sda:
|  Timing cached reads:   2414 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1207.80 MB/sec
|  Timing buffered disk reads:  150 MB in  3.01 seconds =  49.76 MB/sec
`----

The drive is (is?) running with udma5 in both cases, according to
hdparm:

,----[ hdparm -Him  /dev/sda, kernel 2.6.21 ]
| /dev/sda:
|  drive temperature (celsius) is:  42
|  drive temperature in range:  yes
|  HDIO_GET_MULTCOUNT failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
| 
|  Model=Hitachi HTS721010G9SA00                 , FwRev=MCZOC10H, SerialNo=      MPCZN7Y0H7E5VL
|  Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
|  RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
|  BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7538kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?8?
|  CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=195371568
|  IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
|  PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
|  DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
|  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 
|  AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
|  Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 1:  ATA/ATAPI-2,3,4,5,6,7
| 
|  * signifies the current active mode
`----

,----[ hdparm -Him  /dev/hda, kernel 2.6.22 ]
| /dev/hda:
|  drive temperature (celsius) is:  41
|  drive temperature in range:  yes
|  multcount     = 16 (on)
| 
|  Model=Hitachi HTS721010G9SA00, FwRev=MCZOC10H, SerialNo=MPCZN7Y0H7E5VL
|  Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
|  RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=0, SectSize=0, ECCbytes=4
|  BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=7538kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=16
|  CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=195371568
|  IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
|  PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
|  DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
|  UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 
|  AdvancedPM=yes: mode=0x80 (128) WriteCache=enabled
|  Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 1:  ATA/ATAPI-2,3,4,5,6,7
| 
|  * signifies the current active mode
`----

What do I have to do, so that the drive is fast in kernel 2.6.22 as
well?

I'm booting the 2.6.22 kernel with this entry in grub menu.lst:

,----[ kernel 2.6.22 ]
| title Gentoo GNU/Linux (zuletzt gebauter Kernel mit hda)
|         root (hd0,2)
|         kernel /vmlinuz root=/dev/hda6 lapic libata.atapi_enabled=1 combined_mode=libata
`----

Kernel 2.6.21 is started with the following entry in grub:

,----[ kernel 2.6.21 ]
| title Gentoo GNU/Linux (vorletzter gebauter Kernel)
|         root (hd0,2)
|         kernel /vmlinuz.old root=/dev/sda6 lapic libata.atapi_enabled=1 combined_mode=libata
`----

Thanks,

Alexander Skwar

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