[ltp] additional harddisk for t60

[Theodore Tso]

On Wed, Nov 22, 2006 at 11:02:26AM +0100, Martin Aumueller wrote:
> On Wed November 22 2006 10:05, Florian Manschwetus wrote:
> > http://www.pro-com.org/nofost.de/Pages/ArticleDetails.aspx?ArticleID=1409&B
> >ackUrl=289253524 could someone explain me what is so special with this disk?
> > normally it is an hitachi 7k100 which costs normally around 150 euro.
> 
> It probably has special IBM firmware enabling fast head-unloading for 
> protecting it during drops - e.g. for the queue freeze patches for older 
> kernels which can be triggered by hdaps. A regular Hitachi drive does not 
> have this (and drives are very sensitive...)

Yep, that seems to be the main difference.  /tmp/sda is the output of
hdparm -I /dev/sda; /tmp/sdb is the output of hdparm -I /dev/sdb.
Please see the diff of the two below.

The generic hitachi 7k100 seems work just fine, and given that I
haven't been using the hdaps patches that would issue the
IDLE_IMMEDIATE with head onload (which is a new, optional ATAPI
command), I haven't been taking advantage of that feature in the
firmware in my original Lenovo-supplied hard drive for the past 9
months, and the hard drive has been just fine.  

I don't know why Hitachi isn't including the IDLE_IMMEDIATE with
UNLOAD in its generic drive.  It does look the newer Hitachi drive has
a number of other performance features (Native Command Queuing,
In-order data delivery, etc.) that arent' in the IBM/Lenovo hard
drive.  Maybe there isn't room in the firmware for all of the
features?  Maybe because there is some patent covering the unload
feature, and Hitachi didn't want to pay the patent royalties on the
generic drives?  I have no idea...

						- Ted


--- /tmp/sda	2006-11-23 14:25:32.888090372 -0500
+++ /tmp/sdb	2006-11-23 14:25:35.416884112 -0500
@@ -1,10 +1,10 @@
 
-/dev/sda:
+/dev/sdb:
 
 ATA device, with non-removable media
 	Model Number:       HTS721010G9SA00                         
-	Serial Number:      MPCZH1Y0GGNH4D
-	Firmware Revision:  MCZIC10H
+	Serial Number:      MPCZN7Y0H3SJ8L
+	Firmware Revision:  MCZOC10V
 Standards:
 	Used: ATA/ATAPI-7 T13 1532D revision 1 
 	Supported: 7 6 5 4 
@@ -21,6 +21,7 @@
 	device size with M = 1000*1000:      100030 MBytes (100 GB)
 Capabilities:
 	LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
+	Queue depth: 32
 	Standby timer values: spec'd by Vendor, no device specific minimum
 	R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16	Current = 16
 	Advanced power management level: 128 (0x80)
@@ -28,7 +29,7 @@
 	DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5 
 	     Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
 	PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4 
-	     Cycle time: no flow control=240ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
+	     Cycle time: no flow control=120ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
 Commands/features:
 	Enabled	Supported:
 	   *	SMART feature set
@@ -54,11 +55,14 @@
 	   *	SMART self-test
 	   *	General Purpose Logging feature set
 	   *	WRITE_{DMA|MULTIPLE}_FUA_EXT
-	   *	IDLE_IMMEDIATE with UNLOAD
 	   *	SATA-I signaling speed (1.5Gb/s)
+	   *	Native Command Queueing (NCQ)
 	   *	Host-initiated interface power management
-	   *	Device-initiated interface power management
-	   *	Software settings preservation
+	    	Non-Zero buffer offsets in DMA Setup FIS
+	    	DMA Setup Auto-Activate optimization
+	    	Device-initiated interface power management
+	    	In-order data delivery
+	    	Software settings preservation
 Security: 
 	Master password revision code = 65534
 		supported