Ubuntu's performance : how to speed up ?

[Norman Silverstone]

> I tested my drive transfer rate with hdparm : "sudo hdparm -t /dev/hda"
> I ran it 3 times, and it's about between 15 and 20MB per second.

I have a very basic set-up and about the cheapest drive I could get
about 6 months ago. I have just measured the speed 3 times and got an
average of almost 24 Mb per sec. Hope this is of some help.

Norman