Next step; what kernel are you running? It's worth checking the changelogs between the kernel you're running and whatever is current (assuming you're not running the latest and greatest) to see if there have been any improvements in the VIA IDE drivers.
The 2.4.20 that came with RH 9
If you've got time to muck around, you could try compiling a 2.6 series kernel and seeing how it runs. Enable CONFIG_PREEMPT and make sure the VIA IDE drivers are included. You probably need to set aside a few hours to get a 2.6 kernel working correctly, because you can't use your old 2.4 .config verbatim, and it's likely you'll end up with a partially broken machine on your first attempt.
I started using Linux in 1994 when nearly every hardware change meant a re-compile (no modules). I'm used to it, though haven't bothered for some time now...
Can we assume you're not seeing any IDE or disk related errors in your kernel logs?
Logs are OK.
What does 'hdparm -tT /dev/hdc' say? You need to run it at least 3 times to get a decent set of results. This doesn't reflect the real-world speed of your disk, but it's useful for locating certain types of performance problems.
disk reads (-t) come in at a respectable 30MB/s cache reads at ~ 250 MB/s
Does your machine feel sluggish if you run something like 'dd if=/dev/zero of=/path/to/somewhere/on/hdc/testfile bs=32k count=10k'[0]? How about when running 'find / > /dev/null'?
Bingo. It feels like video conferencing on dial-up. Same as updatedb.
Cheers, Carl.
