[plug] dd speed estimates and /dev/hdx grepping

[Craig Ringer]

> The fact that I didn't have a spare drive with any Linux installation on it
> to use to run hdparm etc.

Fair enough. One of the reasons I frequently use a knoppix disk for 
system recovery work is because it has a large collection of useful 
tools and utilities - for example, it includes hdparm. I wouldn't mind a 
GUI-less version, but can't really be bothered looking.

> is why I just booted off the CD, dropped to
> console and did it.  I used bf24 - if I passed ide0=dma ide1=dma to the
> kernel would that have been enough?

I honestly don't know how the kernel handles those parameters. I've 
always used hdparm to configure DMA on the drives, since there are other 
things I change at the same time.

In addition to enabling DMA, I've found it useful to set 'unmaskirq' to 
true, enable multicount I/O, and enable 32bit I/O. The linux kernel, at 
least 2.4, is pretty conservative about what it uses by default, and 
I've never run into problems using the capabilities of more modern 
drives and chipsets. The hdparm man page explains these settings, BTW.

> BTW: when I rocked up this morning it was all finished and happy (as happy
> as the drive could be given its current state).

Cool.

Craig Ringer

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