Harddisk: slow transfer rate

kensan · n00b Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 3

Hello!

(Hardware specs at the bottom of the post)

I have to copy quite a large amount of data from my 200 gig harddisk to the 80 gig harddisk. Now when I start copying the system shows me transfer rates around 35 mb/sec but after a couple seconds this figure decreases continuously until it levels off at around 10 mb/sec.
I have no clue why this happens. I haven't had any problems with the system so far and I have also compiled the correct drivers (for the IDE-Controllers) into my kernel.
Does anybody know what could be causing this speed slump?

-Ken
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My System-Specs:

Proc: Athlon XP 1,2Ghz (I guess that's a XP1600+?)
Mobo: MSI K7T266 Pro2 RU
which means I am using the following (onboard) IDE-Controllers (according to lspci):
-IDE Interface: VIA Technologies, Inc. VT82C586A/B/VT82C686/A/BVT823X/A/C (->ATA 100)
-RAID bus controller: Promies Technology, Inc. 20265 (rev 02) (Fastrack2)

Harddisks:
1 x 80 Gig IBM/Hitachi Harddisk (running in UDMA5 mode on IDE Interface)
1 x 200 Gig IBM /Hitachi Harddisk (also running in UDMA5 mode on RAID Controller)

both harddisk are configured with the following hdparm command:
hdparm -d1 -u1 -X udma5 [$Device]

hdparm -t [$Device] gives me good results (>40 mb/sec for both harddisks)

John5788 · Posted: Thu Jun 10, 2004 1:57 am Post subject:

does this happen all the time? maybe gentoo decided it was time to run an update for the locate database?
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John5788

kensan · n00b Joined: 10 Jun 2004 Posts: 3

Nope, I checked that and that's not the problem. Nothing worth mentioning is running aside of the copying.
Actually the system resides on a third harddisk hooked up to a SCSI-Controller (Adaptec 29160) which should not "conflict" with the data transfer at all.

So yes, it happens all the time.

I have the feeling, that the RAID-Controller is not performing very well. Does anybody know about similar problems with this type of controller (or even the same mobo)?