> Try running "hdparm -Tt /dev/sda" replace /dev/sda with the device name
> for your hard disks. After running that post back here with the results.
>
> You can also install sysstat and use the sar command to see if your system
> is indeed spening a lot of time waiting on disk reads and writes.
>
>
and for bonus points, from that same sysstat package...
iostat -x 5
during a highly disk intensive session. Ignore the first sample output,
thats average since boot, the 3 means sample every 5 seconds. this
prints a wealth of useful information on the state of disk IO on a per
drive basis.
btw, a rather useful performance tool for linux systems ->
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/aix/library/au-analyze_aix/index.html
(originally for AIX, its been ported to Linux... catch-22, its output is
best processed by an Excel spreadsheet to product graphs... but you can
use it on its own.)