Optimize the HDD in GNU/Linux

For a optimization of a hard disk drive (HDD) in GNU/Linux, the command for set the parameters of the HDD is hdparm.

Sometimes after a installation of GNU/Linux the HDD not work with all theirs advantages. For see a principal test of velocities of the HDD type (as root) :

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

with this you can see the velocities of read-write of your HDD, if you only type hdparm /dev/hda you can see general information about your hdd and typing hdparm -qi /dev/hda you see more detailed information about your HDD.

An example of optimization is :

hdparm -m16 -W1 -d1 /dev/hda

after this run the command hdparm -tT /dev/hda and check te performance. In this case -m16 flag set the multcount on a 16, -W1 set on the write-caching and -d1 set on the dma. For more detailed options you can see the manpage of hdparm (man hdparm). Another typical option is -c3 for set 32 bits. (important note : the -W is capital letter, the option -w is dangerous)
For a fast installation of hdparm in system based in Debian only type (as root) : apt-get install hdparm

This is All …

JP.