Gnome Disk utility error benchmarking

[Andis Grosšteins]

While trying to benchmark an external USB drive with "Start Read-Only Benchmark" in benchmark dialog the following error is displayed:
Error benchmarking: helper exited with exit code 1: Device /dev/sdd is too slow to benchmark

This happens with any external USB storage on system. It does not matter if the drive is SD card, USB stick or HDD.

I was searching for bug reports on this problem, but all I found was few forum posts.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: gnome-disk-utility 2.32.1-0ubuntu4
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-11.48-generic 2.6.38.8
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-11-generic i686
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Sep 4 16:39:25 2011
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/palimpsest
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_US:en
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gnome-disk-utility
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-08-14 (21 days ago)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

$ apt-cache policy gnome-disk-utility
gnome-disk-utility:
  Installed: 2.32.1-0ubuntu4
  Candidate: 2.32.1-0ubuntu4
  Version table:
 *** 2.32.1-0ubuntu4 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ natty/main i386 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Also occurs on my system CD/DVD drives. However, hdparm:

DVD/R-W:
$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sr0

/dev/sr0:
 Timing cached reads: 604 MB in 2.00 seconds = 301.56 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 14 MB in 3.37 seconds = 4.16 MB/sec

CD/R-W:
$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sr1

/dev/sr1:
 Timing cached reads: 488 MB in 2.00 seconds = 243.62 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 10 MB in 3.65 seconds = 2.74 MB/sec

[Chih-Hsyuan Ho (chih)]

I have tried to benchmark different drive/media combination with the Disk Utility tool. And here is what I have found:

1. Internal DVD/CD drive -> same too slow error (has fail rate, but it fails most of the time)
2. External USB DVD/CD drive -> too slow error
3. External USB thumb drive -> OK
4. External USB hard drive -> OK
5. SD card in card reader -> OK

[Rex Tsai (chihchun)]

Thank you for reporting this bug to Ubuntu. Natty Narwhal reached EOL on October 28, 2012.
See this document for currently supported Ubuntu releases: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Releases

I've tried recreating this bug with 12.10 quantal and was unable to, given the information you've provided. Please upgrade to the latest version and re-test. If the bug is still reproducible, increase the verbosity of the steps to recreate it so we can try again.

Do feel free to report any other bugs you may find.

[NoOp (glgxg)]

On Precise 12.04 which is supported until April 2017:

$ apt-cache policy gnome-disk-utility
gnome-disk-utility:
  Installed: 3.0.2-2ubuntu7
  Candidate: 3.0.2-2ubuntu7
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.2-2ubuntu7 0
        500 http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ precise/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

Error Benchmarking drive
An error occured while performing an operation on "CD/DVD Drive" (hp hp DVDRAM GT20L): The operation failed
Details:
Error benchmarking: helper exited with exit code 1: Device /dev/sr0 is too slow to benchmark

Yet:
~$ sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sr0
[sudo] password for gg:

/dev/sr0:
 Timing cached reads: 728 MB in 2.00 seconds = 363.87 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads: 6 MB in 3.86 seconds = 1.55 MB/sec

*-cdrom
                description: DVD-RAM writer
                product: DVDRAM GT20L
                vendor: hp
                physical id: 1
                bus info: scsi@1:0.0.0
                logical name: /dev/cdrom
                logical name: /dev/cdrw
                logical name: /dev/dvd
                logical name: /dev/dvdrw
                logical name: /dev/sr0
                logical name: /media/Ubuntu 10.04.1 LTS amd64
                version: DC05
                capabilities: removable audio cd-r cd-rw dvd dvd-r dvd-ram
                configuration: ansiversion=5 mount.fstype=iso9660 mount.options=ro,nosuid,nodev,relatime,uid=1000,gid=1000,iocharset=utf8,mode=0400,dmode=0500 state=mounted status=ready

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-disk-utility (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]