Talk:How to improve harddisk performance

On Ubuntu 7.04, you have to use /dev/sda rather than /dev/hda, but when you do this it generates some warnings:

root@T40-thinkpad:/home/user# hdparm -d1c1u1m16 /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 setting 32-bit IO_support flag to 1
 HDIO_SET_32BIT failed: Invalid argument
 setting multcount to 16
 HDIO_SET_MULTCOUNT failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 setting unmaskirq to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_UNMASKINTR failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 HDIO_GET_MULTCOUNT failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 IO_support   =  0 (default 16-bit)
root@T40-thinkpad:/home/user# 

Maybe hdparm is obsolete now? -- All the best, Nickj 08:16, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

I have the same experience on my R40, although I cannot set DMA mode with hdparm, the DVD still seems to work at a reasonable pace. This is with Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy). Simon Sat Oct 13 07:53:55 CEST 2007