Testing hard disk performance with hdparm

Use 'hdparm -Tt /dev/hda' to check the disk performance of a system. Here are some numbers from other systems for comparison:

cat:
Timing cached reads:   2752 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1376.89 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  152 MB in  3.03 seconds =  50.25 MB/sec

ednrh4 (SCSI, HW RAID)
Timing cached reads:   2116 MB in  2.00 seconds = 1057.63 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  246 MB in  3.02 seconds =  81.55 MB/sec

Dell Latitude C600:
Timing cached reads:   436 MB in  2.30 seconds = 189.74 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:   46 MB in  3.12 seconds =  14.72 MB/sec

shawn:
Timing buffer-cache reads:   128 MB in  1.83 seconds = 69.87 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  64 MB in  1.97 seconds = 32.54 MB/sec

classroom2 (Athlon64, PATA disk)
Timing cached reads:   1992 MB in  2.00 seconds = 995.06 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads:  130 MB in  3.01 seconds =  43.25 MB/sec

01/18/2007