Hi, As a concrete example of hdparm, here are my settings: /sbin/hdparm -X66 -d1 -u1 -m16 -c3 /dev/hda You will need to run this every time you boot the computer. I understand these are very standard settings for even vaguely modern hardware, so they should be safe although as always, it's your liability. I think you know you can test your drive's read performance using hdparm -t, so try this before and after. Distros have to be safe by default, so they don't use hdparm. I don't really see why there isn't a deb for it though (with debconf to set it up - I think hdparm.deb just gives you binaries/docs). Alexis -- "You got what everyone gets. A lifetime." - Death (Sandman by Neil Gaiman) "One of the great things about books is sometimes there are some fantastic pictures" - George W. Bush