I recently learned about hdparm and tuning my hard drive's performance - but I don't know when to run the command. On my RH ES 3.0 box I currently have in rc.local:hdparm -X34 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hda but I don't know where to put that on my debian box for when it boots.

Also I know that code works on my Celeron 2.4 box from SM, but do you think my old Dell Dimension XPS D333 can handle that same code on its HDD? I have some wierd errors about waiting for DMA.

I would suggest upgrading your kernel. If the kernel recognizes your IDE controller, it will automatically set those values within safe limits. I would not recommend blindly cutting and pasting drive parameters if you value your data.

I have the kernel at the latest version, I was under the impression that it used very default values and that you can get some good performance gains by tuning your setup.

This might help. Cheers

http://www.desktop-linux.net/debian-rclocal.htm

Originally posted by Snoozy
I have the kernel at the latest version, I was under the impression that it used very default values and that you can get some good performance gains by tuning your setup.
The debian-built kernel may use conservative settings. I've always built my own, so I'm not sure.

As long as we're here, though, what does hdparm say for the system now? Some of those settings may already be enabled.