[ltp] Re: Does hdaps [APS] work on non-Thinkpad hard drives?

[Elias Oltmanns]

Jon Escombe <lists@dresco.co.uk> wrote:
> r8scq7b02@sneakemail.com wrote:
>
>> Thank you for that explanation. The reason for me asking all of this
>> is because I would like to buy a non-Thinkpad (or non-Lenovo) hard
>> drive. It appears now that I must dig a little deeper than I thought
>> in the hard drive specifications to see if the hard drive supports
>> what is needed by HDAPS.
>>
>> By any chance, does anyone know when the UNLOAD_IMMEDIATE
>> specification became part of the ATA standard?
>>
>> And by ATA standard, SATA hard drives are also included in this,
>> correct? Or is SATA a whole different ball game?
>>
>> Thank you.
>
> I think it was first documented in the ATA-7 spec. SATA drives are included.
>
> If you can get the drive into a machine, you'll be able to tell
> whether it advertises support for the feature with hdparm -I. If
> you're just looking to buy, the spec sheets for the drive itself might
> tell you?

Please be aware that the unload feature of the idle immediate command,
which is essential to the disk protection patch, is optional even in
ATA-7. If hdparm tells you that the unload feature is advertised by
your particular drive, I suppose you can rely upon it. However, just
saying that a drive complies with ATA-7 is not sufficient and some
drives even implemented the unload feature of the idle immediate
command before ATA-7 which probably is the reason that not all of them
advertise this feature even though they actually support it.

Regards,

Elias