BIG performance issue with ext3

[paulvarjak at gmail.com]

Hello.

I have a big problem with my hard disk in a very high performance
computer. The disk is a SATA2. When running I/O operations the
performance is just horrible (around 10 times slower than my home
computer). I've tested this with bonnie++.

I'm trying to discover what's wrong but I don't really know what to
do. Can anyone help telling me what to check out?

This are the parameters of the FS:

# tune2fs -l /dev/sda5
tune2fs 1.35 (28-Feb-2004)
Filesystem volume name:   <none>
Last mounted on:          <not available>
Filesystem UUID:          xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <-- DELETED BY ME
Filesystem magic number:  0xEF53
Filesystem revision #:    1 (dynamic)
Filesystem features:      has_journal filetype needs_recovery
sparse_super large_file
Default mount options:    (none)
Filesystem state:         clean
Errors behavior:          Continue
Filesystem OS type:       Linux
Inode count:              4276224
Block count:              8545155
Reserved block count:     427257
Free blocks:              7371202
Free inodes:              4276096
First block:              0
Block size:               4096
Fragment size:            4096
Blocks per group:         32768
Fragments per group:      32768
Inodes per group:         16384
Inode blocks per group:   512
Filesystem created:       Tue Feb 27 10:22:09 2007
Last mount time:          Thu Jun 28 17:53:25 2007
Last write time:          Thu Jun 28 17:53:25 2007
Mount count:              4
Maximum mount count:      31
Last checked:             Tue Feb 27 10:22:09 2007
Check interval:           15552000 (6 months)
Next check after:         Sun Aug 26 11:22:09 2007
Reserved blocks uid:      0 (user root)
Reserved blocks gid:      0 (group root)
First inode:              11
Inode size:               128
Journal inode:            8
First orphan inode:       2195457
Default directory hash:   tea
Directory Hash Seed:      6d77d4e6-8646-47d1-891d-331a7c944952
Journal backup:           inode blocks

Thanks!!
Salva.