This message is from the T13 list server.
On Wed, 20 Mar 2002 09:56:59 -0800, Thomas Colligan wrote: >This message is from the T13 list server. >So why the two positions? With respect to R/W Long there are two positions: a) the old R/W Long commands are inadequate to test a modern drive's ECC -and- b) due to a lot of "mistrust" many disk drive customers feel a need to perform this testing. OK, if a disk drive manufacturer wants this business then that manufacturer will implement a set of vendor specific commands to test the ECC of their drive (or even specific model of drive). Those vendor specific commands might even "look like" the old R/W Long commands. But in general we have progressed past the days when commands like those intended to test MFM disk controllers are adequate. And testing the ECC on modern drive model A may be very different than testing the ECC on modern drive model B. >Everyone, happy except for drive suppliers because they would have to do as >their customers ask. What a novel Idea? But when customer ask for things that make no sense what should T13 do? The answer is T13 will wait for someone to bring in a proposal that makes sense. I don't recall a single proposal in the last 4 years to define a new and better way to do ECC testing from a host. >As Harlan stated it is getting harder and harder to test today's ATA hard >drives for a number of reasons. I expect HDD supplier factories are under >the same constraints. How do you completely test a 120GB in the time >required by upper management, and state that the drive is good. We should >be adding new test technologies that allow for a quicker analysis of drive >issues. As the capacity of today's HDD increase the more difficult it will >be for all of us. What do you want to test? Many drives have all their hardware logic and firmware inside a single chip. There isn't much that can be tested externally with any real confidence. Only the drive can test itself internally and report the result (isn't that what SMART is all about?). But I hope everyone knows that a modern disk drive runs a multitasking "OS" with anything from four to eight tasks, each responsible for some part of the disk drive's operation. How are you going to test that? But I'll ask again... What parts of a disk drive do you want to test (and why)? Lets see the proposal(s). *** Hale Landis *** www.ata-atapi.com ***
