I think that was a tongue in cheek answer, it should mean that the fix would be in one of the upcoming kernel changes. Anyway here's my output from gutsy :-

sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   622 MB in  2.00 seconds = 310.37 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   84 MB in  3.03 seconds =  27.77 MB/sec

Then did :-

 /dev/sdb:

 Model=SAMSUNG SP0802N                         , FwRev=TK100-24, SerialNo=S00JJ10X390473      
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16?
 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=16511760, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156368016
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 What is that MultiSect= ?16? about ?

Then did :-

sudo hdparm -a1 -A1 -d1 /dev/sdb
Password:

/dev/sdb:
 setting fs readahead to 1
 setting using_dma to 1 (on)
 HDIO_SET_DMA failed: Inappropriate ioctl for device
 setting drive read-lookahead to 1 (on)
 readahead     =  0 (off)
 look-ahead    =  1 (on)

 Now can anybody tell me the difference between readahead & look-ahead ? Which is better ?
 Also the DMA issue is still failing :( or should there be a different flag

 sudo hdparm -tT /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:
 Timing cached reads:   622 MB in  2.00 seconds = 310.74 MB/sec
 Timing buffered disk reads:   42 MB in  3.09 seconds =  13.60 MB/sec
shirish@ubuntu:~$ sudo hdparm -i /dev/sdb

 As you can see the timing cached reads has improved a tiny bit but buffered disk reads have fallen behind


Lastly, there is this :-

sudo hdparm -i /dev/sdb

/dev/sdb:

 Model=SAMSUNG SP0802N                         , FwRev=TK100-24, SerialNo=S00JJ10X390473      
 Config={ HardSect NotMFM HdSw>15uSec Fixed DTR>10Mbs }
 RawCHS=16383/16/63, TrkSize=34902, SectSize=554, ECCbytes=4
 BuffType=DualPortCache, BuffSize=2048kB, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=?16?
 CurCHS=4047/16/255, CurSects=16511760, LBA=yes, LBAsects=156368016
 IORDY=on/off, tPIO={min:240,w/IORDY:120}, tDMA={min:120,rec:120}
 PIO modes:  pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
 DMA modes:  mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 
 UDMA modes: udma0 udma1 *udma2 udma3 udma4 udma5 
 AdvancedPM=no WriteCache=enabled
 Drive conforms to: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 0:  ATA/ATAPI-1,2,3,4,5,6,7

 * signifies the current active mode

 The kernel is 2.6.22 rc something 

 uname -a
Linux ubuntu 2.6.22-6-generic #1 SMP Fri Jun 1 19:24:12 GMT 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

 hdparm shows up as 7.1-2 ubuntu1

 aptitude show hdparm
Package: hdparm
State: installed
Automatically installed: no
Version: 7.1-2ubuntu1
Priority: standard
Section: admin
Maintainer: Ubuntu Core Developers <email address hidden>
Uncompressed Size: 258k
Depends: libc6 (>= 2.5-5)
Suggests: apmd
Replaces: apmd (<= 3.0.2-1.15)
Description: tune hard disk parameters for high performance
 Get/set hard disk parameters for Linux IDE drives. Primary use is for enabling
 irq-unmasking and IDE multiplemode.


 This one is sure a long-standing issue :/