Re: [gentoo-user] Getting maximum space out of a hard drive

[Grant Taylor]

On 8/20/22 4:45 PM, Dale wrote:
> I figured it was something like that.  ;-)

:-)

> This drive is not supposed to be SMR.  It's a 10TB and according to a
> site I looked on, none of them are SMR, yet.  I found another site that
> said it was CMR.  So, pretty sure it isn't SMR.  Nothing is 100% tho.
> I might add, it's been at about that speed since I started the backup.
> If you have a better source of info, it's a WD model WD101EDBZ-11B1DA0
> drive.

I am so far from an authority and wouldn't know anything better than a 
web search for manufacturer's documents.

> I noticed there is a kcrypt something thread running, a few actually
> but it's hard to keep up since I see it on gkrellm's top process list.
> The CPU is running at about 40% or so average but I do have mplayer,
> a couple Firefox profiles, Seamonkey and other stuff running as well.
> I still got plenty of CPU pedal left if needed.  Having Ktorrent and
> qbittorrent running together isn't helping.  Thinking of switching
> torrent software.  Qbit does seem to use more memory tho.

Ya, the number of things hitting the drive will impact performance.  The 
type of requests will also impact things.  In my limited experience, 
lots of little requests seem to be harder for a drive than fewer but 
bigger requests.

> I think the 512 has something to do with key size or something.
> Am I wrong on that?  If I need to use 256 or something, I can.
> My understanding was that 512 was stronger than 256 as far as the
> encryption goes.

Agreed.  At least that's the quick look at the cryptsetup man page on 
line showed me.  But I suspect the underlying concept may still stand, 
even if the particular parameter in your previous message is not related.

> I'm going to try some tests Rich mentioned after it is done doing
> its backup.  I don't want to stop it if I can avoid it.  It's about
> half way through, give or take a little.

:-)



-- 
Grant. . . .
unix || die