On [Fri Dec 15 23:45], Peter Teuben wrote: > This is a very old topic about which I've reported before and has > some old entries in redhat/fedora's bugzilla. But the basic problem is > that in order for desktops to "automatically" detect that a CD has > been added/removed, it has to poll /dev/hdb, but poor little /dev/hda > is then interrupted, at least on a Dell 8200 this causes the HD > performance to go down by about a factor 2-4. > > hdparm then reports erratic I/O (5-10 MB/s, where the drive will do a > consistent 38 MB/sec in my case in single user mode). > > In fedora5 and 6 this is now done by hald-addon-storage, which appears > in the process table as polling hdb. I suspect it's a Dell 8200 problem > (hardware related), though i have an 8600 to play with, and a thinkpad T40 > i can try as well. It might also be the settings of the HD, i tried > playing with the hdparm options, but nothing will bring it back to a > consistent level, other than killing the polling task. As said,this is > a very old topic. > > I'd love to hear any other/more reports on this issue. Eventually i'll > file a bugzilla on this of course. That was old bug 138148, but it was re-entered in FC6 bugzilla: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=213995 A reasonable solution is to insert a CD/DVD and keep it in the drive, it will bring the disk I/O up to a steady 26 MB/sec, however, if you stop the haldaemon, mine will go up to a much more respectable 38 MB/sec. - peter
