Cache size of the hard drive?

[Vincent Trouilliez]

On Sat, 31 May 2008 15:14:41 -0400
"Qiuli Han" <ivyharry at gmail.com> wrote:

> I am trying to see how much cache does my hard drive have. I installed
> hwinfo, but it only gives me some hardware vendor information and system
> location information.
> 
> Is there anyway I can see my disk's cache size?
> 
> running 8.04, hard disk is: WDC WD3200KS-00P (as per hwinfo)

Hi,

no need to install extra software ;-)
You can just use hdparm, here is an example on my hard drive
(replace sda with the relevant device name of your own drive of course).

-----------------------------
$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/sda
[sudo] password for vincent: 

/dev/sda:

 Model=SAMSUNG HD502IJ                         , FwRev=1AA01110,
SerialNo=S13TJDWQ412337 Config={ Fixed }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=16384kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16?
 CurCHS=16383/16/63, CurSects=16514064, LBA=yes, LBAsects=976773168
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:120,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 *udma6 
 AdvancedPM=yes: disabled (255) WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: unknown:  ATA/ATAPI-3,4,5,6,7
--------------------------------

My drive has 16MB of cache, it is described above as "BuffSize=16384kB".

You can also use hdparm -I (upper case 'i') to display even more
information about your drive.

Just run "man hdparm" to see all the options available ;-)

--
Vince