Quoting Manuel Bouyer <bouyer@antioche.eu.org>:

> On Sat, Feb 04, 2006 at 01:01:21PM +1100, James Haggerty wrote:
> > > OK, so DMA is probably used, but the controller or the drive can't
> > > run fast.
> > > Could you run the test program with a large number, and check the
> > > system and interrupt CPU usage with top or systat vm ?
> > >
> > > Anyway I'm going to commit the patch, as at last it prevents the
> panic.
> > >
> >
> > Using systat vm, Sy hovers around 1.0 to 1.4%; In goes from 0.0 to
> 0.4%.
>
> OK, so DMA is working. I guess either the drive or the controller isn't
> very good ...
>

Can the controller be _that_ bad though? Using the standard wdc driver, I
get 3.3 - 3.4 mb/s (vs. 3.0 mb/s with dma and the proper driver!). So, I
assume it can't be the hard disk - or is this typical behaviour for a slow
drive? Since I get > 4mb/s out of an old 1.0gb drive in an even older
laptop, I'd be surprised if this 6.4gb one was slower.

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