HOWTO Use hdparm to improve IDE device performance

Hdparm is a tool that allows you to set IDE device settings. This includes things such as DMA modes, transfer settings and various other settings that can help improve the speed of your hard disks and CDROMs. These settings are not enabled by default, so you will probably want to enable them. This guide is also intended to provide more up-to-date information on hdparm settings and inform the user how to check what settings are supported so that the optimum settings for the drive can be used. Many hdparm guides simply tell people to enable specific modes such as '-X33' or '-c1', and as most of these guides are now out-of-date many people end up using those older settings when better, newer options may now be used. By speeding up your hard drives you should get a faster system. It should also help solve stuttering DVD playback or extremely slow burning.