Performance on Sparc Ultra 10

[Andreas Tille <tillea@rki.de>]

Hello,

after compiling a 2.4.21 without module support and left out any unused stuff
I was able to increase disk performance of my Ultra 10 (256 MB Ram, 333 MHz):

bonnie:
  Install-Kernel (woody):
   ehec2,496M,2655,82,11695,63,2407,56,1621,91,3374,80,93.2,20,16,300,96,+++++,+++,14258,100,303,97,+++++,+++,1612,88

  2.4.21:
   ehec2,496M,3316,98,13866,27,5968,13,2856,92,12546,13,123.9,1,16,261,97,+++++,+++,13110,100,270,97,+++++,+++,1658,96

(For those unfamiliar with bonnie: The numbers greater than 100 are KByte/sec
 and should be greater for better performance, the number < 100 followed by each
 those numbers are percentage of CPU used and should be smaller.)

While this is a good result I wonder how I can tune the system further because
it is slower than I expected.  I wonder if hdparm might help on those IDE-Systems.
So I tested

# hdparm /dev/hda

/dev/hda:
 multcount    = 16 (on)
 I/O support  =  0 (default 16-bit)
 unmaskirq    =  0 (off)
 using_dma    =  1 (on)
 keepsettings =  0 (off)
 nowerr       =  0 (off)
 readonly     =  0 (off)
 readahead    =  8 (on)
 geometry     = 17662/16/63, sectors = 17803440, start = 0
 HDIO_GET_BUSSTATE failed: Invalid argument

While I do not know what the last line means I wonder why
      I/O support  =  0 (default 16-bit)
                                 ^^

On my Intel-Boxes this is

      IO_support   =  1 (32-bit)

Any hint whether I could change this setting without a problem (the box is
now 200km far from my home and no expert near the box) and what other
possibilities I would have.

Kind regards

         Andreas.