do my disks advertise multiple sector I/O falsly

[Kodey]

According to hdparm manual:

Some drives claim to support multiple mode, but lose data at some settings. Under rare circumstances, such failures can result in massive filesystem corruption.

Since my drives contain precious data, I want to be sure setting -m16 on them will work but I don't know how to check.
I learned this so far:

Code:

root@pmhost:~# dmesg | grep -i sata | grep 'link up'
[    2.063947] ata5: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    2.071931] ata2: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    2.071953] ata4: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    2.071977] ata3: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)
[    2.072001] ata1: SATA link up 6.0 Gbps (SStatus 133 SControl 300)

root@pmhost:~# hdparm -i /dev/sd[abcde] | grep -E "MultSect|Model"
Model=ST8000NE001-2M7101, FwRev=EN01, SerialNo=WSD2ARRS
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
Model=ST8000NE001-2M7101, FwRev=EN01, SerialNo=WSD296WC
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
Model=ST8000NE001-2M7101, FwRev=EN01, SerialNo=WSD1E4JD
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
Model=ST8000NE001-2M7101, FwRev=EN01, SerialNo=WSD2ARV5
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=16, MultSect=off
Model=Samsung SSD 840 EVO 1TB, FwRev=EXT0DB6Q, SerialNo=S1D9NEAD804891R
BuffType=unknown, BuffSize=unknown, MaxMultSect=1, MultSect=1

root@pmhost:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
Timing cached reads:   56058 MB in  2.00 seconds = 28091.49 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 748 MB in  3.01 seconds = 248.70 MB/sec
root@pmhost:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sdb
/dev/sdb:
Timing cached reads:   58344 MB in  2.00 seconds = 29239.03 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 714 MB in  3.00 seconds = 237.62 MB/sec
root@pmhost:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sdc
/dev/sdc:
Timing cached reads:   57226 MB in  2.00 seconds = 28676.96 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 746 MB in  3.00 seconds = 248.49 MB/sec
root@pmhost:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sdd
/dev/sdd:
Timing cached reads:   56568 MB in  2.00 seconds = 28347.41 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 728 MB in  3.01 seconds = 242.06 MB/sec
root@pmhost:~# hdparm -tT /dev/sde
/dev/sde:
Timing cached reads:   59282 MB in  2.00 seconds = 29709.93 MB/sec
Timing buffered disk reads: 1526 MB in  3.00 seconds = 508.11 MB/sec


The speeds of the Seagate ST8000NE001s seem to be about half what I expected. But when I tried to set multiple sector I/O with hdparm I got this:

Code:

root@pmhost:~# hdparm -m16 /dev/sda
/dev/sda:
setting multcount to 16
Use of -m is VERY DANGEROUS.
Only the old IDE drivers work correctly with -m with kernels up to at least 2.6.29.
libata drives may fail and get hung if you set this flag.
Please supply the --yes-i-know-what-i-am-doing flag if you really want this.
Program aborted.


So I thought I'd ask what kind of a risk I'd be taking by proceeding and if anyone knows if these drives advertise this setting correctly?
Cheers Kodey

[Kodey]

Does anyone know how to find out if these drives advertise their multiple sector I/O capability correctly or who can help me with that?