Hdparm - Command Line Performance Tuning And Benchmarking Tool For SATA/IDE Hard-Disk Drives - Advanced Tech Tips Blog

Hdparm - Command Line Performance Tuning And Benchmarking Tool For SATA/IDE Hard-Disk Drives

Posted: 11 Oct 2013 01:08 AM PDT

hdparm is a powerful command-line utility for Linux and Windows operating systems to set and view ATA hard disk drive hardware parameters. The utility also allows users to test disk read/write performance with cached and buffered modes. The utility allows users to view and change SATA/IDE disk-drive hardware parameters like drive caches, sleep mode, power management, acoustic management, and DMA settings which are generally set to suboptimal conservative defaults to their optimal settings for best performance. Checkout the example output below for disk information command followed by disk performance test.

  root@myserver:~#  hdparm -I /dev/sdc    /dev/sdc:    ATA device, with non-removable media          Model Number:       WDC WD2002FYPS-02W3B0          Serial Number:      WD-WCXXXXX64757          Firmware Revision:  04.01G01          Transport:          Serial, SATA 1.0a, SATA II Extensions, SATA Rev 2.5,                  SATA Rev 2.6  Standards:          Supported: 8 7 6 5          Likely used: 8  Configuration:          Logical         max     current          cylinders       16383   16383          heads           16      16          sectors/track   63      63          --          CHS current addressable sectors:   16514064          LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455          LBA48  user addressable sectors: 3907029168          Logical/Physical Sector size:           512 bytes          device size with M = 1024*1024:     1907729 MBytes          device size with M = 1000*1000:     2000398 MBytes (2000 GB)          cache/buffer size  = unknown          Nominal Media Rotation Rate: 5400  Capabilities:          LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)          Queue depth: 32          Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard, with device specific minimum          R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 0          Advanced power management level: 128          Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 254          DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6               Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns          PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4               Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns  Commands/features:          Enabled Supported:             *    SMART feature set                  Security Mode feature set             *    Power Management feature set             *    Write cache             *    Look-ahead             *    Host Protected Area feature set             *    WRITE_BUFFER command             *    READ_BUFFER command             *    NOP cmd             *    DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE             *    Advanced Power Management feature set                  Power-Up In Standby feature set             *    SET_FEATURES required to spinup after power up                  SET_MAX security extension             *    Automatic Acoustic Management feature set             *    48-bit Address feature set             *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set             *    Mandatory FLUSH_CACHE             *    FLUSH_CACHE_EXT             *    SMART error logging             *    SMART self-test             *    General Purpose Logging feature set             *    WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT             *    64-bit World wide name             *    IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD             *    WRITE_UNCORRECTABLE_EXT command             *    {READ,WRITE}_DMA_EXT_GPL commands             *    Segmented DOWNLOAD_MICROCODE             *    Gen1 signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)             *    Gen2 signaling speed (3.0Gb/s)             *    Native Command Queueing (NCQ)             *    Phy event counters             *    Idle-Unload when NCQ is active             *    NCQ priority information             *    DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization             *    Software settings preservation             *    SMART Command Transport (SCT) feature set             *    SCT Long Sector Access (AC1)             *    SCT LBA Segment Access (AC2)             *    SCT Error Recovery Control (AC3)             *    SCT Features Control (AC4)             *    SCT Data Tables (AC5)                  unknown 206[12] (vendor specific)                  unknown 206[13] (vendor specific)  Security:          Master password revision code = 65534                  supported          not     enabled          not     locked          not     frozen          not     expired: security count                  supported: enhanced erase          424min for SECURITY ERASE UNIT. 424min for ENHANCED SECURITY ERASE UNIT.                   Logical Unit WWN Device Identifier: 50014ee25b269017          NAA             : 5          IEEE OUI        : 0014ee          Unique ID       : 25b269017  Checksum: correct    root@myserver:~# hdparm -Tt /dev/sdc    /dev/sdc:   Timing cached reads:   27130 MB in  2.00 seconds = 13583.27 MB/sec   Timing buffered disk reads: 312 MB in  3.02 seconds = 103.42 MB/sec