hdparm is a Linux shell utility for viewing and manipulating various IDE drive and driver parameters. Most drives can benefit from improved performance using a command similar to "hdparm -qm8 -qu1 -qc1 -qd1 /dev/hda".
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The SET_FEATURES commands are functional again. "--user-master" now defaults to "user" instead of "master", for better drive compatibility. The drive-supplied timeout is now used for security-erase commands. The default general timeout was raised from 5 to 15 seconds. Other minor modifications were made.