Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1760927AbXEZOkJ (ORCPT ); Sat, 26 May 2007 10:40:09 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1754915AbXEZOj6 (ORCPT ); Sat, 26 May 2007 10:39:58 -0400 Received: from gw.ac.upc.edu ([147.83.30.3]:57399 "EHLO gw.ac.upc.edu" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1754349AbXEZOj5 (ORCPT ); Sat, 26 May 2007 10:39:57 -0400 In-Reply-To: <200705261505.38109@gj-laptop> References: <200705261505.38109@gj-laptop> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v752.3) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Cc: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: "Julio M. Merino Vidal" Subject: Re: 2.6.21.1 - 97% wait time on IDE operations Date: Sat, 26 May 2007 16:39:52 +0200 To: Tommy Vercetti X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.752.3) Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1529 Lines: 39 On 26/05/2007, at 15:05, Tommy Vercetti wrote: > Hi folks, > > I was trying to get answer to my question around, but no one knows. > I do have DMA turned on, etc, yet - on extensive harddrive > operations wait > time is 90+% , which means that machine is waiting, rather than doing > something meanwhile. (I guess). > Can someone describe to me , in more detail why is that happening, > and what > steps should I consider to avoid it ? I couldn't find any answers > that would > have help me on net. I see in your other post that you have a laptop disk drive and, based on its specs, it is a 4200RPM one. Laptop drives are incredibly slow for random disk access -- I have one and hate it with passion... even though it is slightly better (5400RPM)... You mention that you are doing expensive disk operations. If these involve a lot of disk seeks (such as, for example, a "cvs update" on a large source tree), disk performance will be very very poor and any other operation you attempt on it will be slow as well. These kind of drives are the major bottleneck of current laptop machines, in my opinion. (I just wanted to make this clear wrt the hardware. I do not know if Linux is also involved or not.) -- Julio M. Merino Vidal - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/