hdparm - speed up your IDE disk

Still using those IDE hard disks ;-) ?

hdparm is a utility that lets you speed up your disk speed by optimizing certain IDE parameters.

hdparm should come installed with your distribution

First, execute

hdparm -tT /dev/hda

to check the disk speeds

Now, execute


hdparm -d1 -c1 -m16 /dev/hda

which basically enables DMA, IO Support & maximum number of disk sectors per single request

Execute the speed check and you will most probably notice significant increase in the speed.

hdparm -tT /dev/hda