Selecting a Linux I/O Scheduler

Question

I read that it\'s supposedly possible to change the I/O scheduler for a particular device on a running kernel by writing to /sys/block/[disk]/queue/scheduler. For example I

Answer 1

The Linux Kernel does not automatically change the IO Scheduler at run-time. By this I mean, the Linux kernel, as of today, is not able to automatically choose an "optimal" scheduler depending on the type of secondary storage devise. During start-up, or during run-time, it is possible to change the IO scheduler manually.

The default scheduler is chosen at start-up based on the contents in the file located at /linux-2.6 /block/Kconfig.iosched. However, it is possible to change the IO scheduler during run-time by echoing a valid scheduler name into the file located at /sys/block/[DEV]/queue/scheduler. For example, echo deadline > /sys/block/hda/queue/scheduler