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David F. wrote:
I'm not sure if this has been addressed but this was something I came
across quite a while ago that was annoying.
Using the SET FEATURES to set the various modes, such as PIO mode,
doesn't seem to have any affect unless you reprogram the host - which
requires figuring out the chipset. It seems to me there should be a
standard that the host automatically syncs to whatever mode the device
gets set too (or vise-versa) or that there be a well defined standard
of setting up the host mode as well. (Including RAID "controllers").
This is largely a legacy PATA issue, now that SATA is out.
When is someone going to design a "TrueRAID" controller that hides the
devices when programming at the ATA command/ports level?
There are plenty of hardware RAID controllers on the market.
For the chipset/BIOS guys, It would be nice if the RAID controller could
have two modes - RAID / Non-RAID in which the PCI class codes reflect
the mode it's in. (Also be sure to use UDMA on your int 13h interface -
many highpoint based implementations use PIO 0 via int 13h)
Many "fake RAID" SATA controllers already do this.
For more info, see my SATA RAID FAQ:
http://linux.yyz.us/sata/faq-sata-raid.html
When is SMART going to be standardized so that recovery / security tools
have one standard to work from to get key information like relocation
table size, number of bad sectors relocated, which sectors have been
relocated to where, ability to enable/disable relocation, sectors that
are starting to encounter errors, device level problems like temp, spin
up problems, etc. Right now, it's not standard.
Once you start having problems with a drive, the most secure option is
to throw it in the trash (or RMA it).
Jeff
