[NTLUG:Discuss] Setting up a SATA drive for performance

[agoats at compuserve.com]

Ya'll,

I picked up a SATA drive and driver card and in the process of setting 
up and using it, I have some *PROFOUND* performance issues.

from hdparm:
hdparm -tT  /dev/sda

/dev/sda:
 Timing cached reads:     2 MB in  2.24 seconds = 914.79 kB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:    2 MB in  5.31 seconds = 385.49 kB/sec

That's kinda sloooowwwww......

So what I'm looking for is the correct chant to make that will boost 
performance quite a bit. hdparm doesn't et anything and I haven't found 
what sdparm chant I need to make to make things better.

OS is Slackware 12.2.2,  kernel 2.6.27, so everything should work fine.

Suggestions?

Alvin