Question : Problem: 15,000 SCSI hard drive going slow!

I just built a new server:

OS: Fedora Core 4
Motherboard: http://www.supermicro.com/products/motherboard/Xeon1333/5000P/X7DB8.cfm
Processors: 2 intel xenon 3.0ghz dual-core 64bit
RAM: 8GB FB-DIMM
HD: SCSI 74GB 15,000 RPM

The boot-up is very slow. Also, I ran a scrip that parses a large file and puts the output into various files. It wasn't much faster than running it on my old system. I'm wondering if the harddrive is the problem.


# hdparm -t /dev/sda2

/dev/sda2:
 Timing buffered disk reads:  188 MB in  3.01 seconds =  62.55 MB/sec

Shouldn't the SCSI drive go at 320MB/sec? Is this an accurate test? If so, why is it going so slow?

Answer : Problem: 15,000 SCSI hard drive going slow!

No - the 320MB/sec is the speed of the SCSI bus, not the disc speed.

62.55MB/sec sustained on a 73GB 15K rpm disc is about right and approaching the top end of its performance specifications.