[NTLUG:Discuss] USBMon was Re: external hard drive question

[Mike LaPlante]

Chris Cox wrote:
>
> If you have the kernel docs installed look for the file usb/usbmon.txt
>
>   
http://www.mjmwired.net/kernel/Documentation/usb/usbmon.txt
That's all greek to me   >.<    Not to mention even my bloated Fedora 7 
kernel doesn't have the usbmon module built.

I won't pretend to understand 1/2 of what that file is talking about. 
Though I didn't see anything about what I was really looking for. That 
being just a simple utility that shows me the current and possibly the 
max transfer rate between my PC and a USB drive.

However, I found an alternate way to see that info. I've always used 
gkrellm as a system monitor and it dawned on me that once I plugged in 
my USB drive gkrellm will let me add it as a monitor. Then with the 
proper format strings and chart labels I can see the data I want.

The only real downside to this is that my original need was for a CLI 
utility because the server I wanted to do this on is headless. I know 
gkrellm gets most its data from somewhere in /proc. So the information 
is there, I just don't know how to get it....   I'm thinking hdparm 
could do a one time test to show you the max rates, but wouldn't help as 
far as showing current activity.

Its all kind of moot, I was just trying to troubleshoot why the drive 
was writing to slow, but after trying a different USB 2.0 port it worked 
much faster. I know that both ports are 2.0 (lsusb -v shows that much) 
but apparently one is somehow damaged.

Anyhoo, thanks for the info Chris.
Mike