From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Stefan Smietanowski Subject: Re: [PATCH] speed up SATA Date: Sun, 28 Mar 2004 09:23:57 +0200 Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <40667D8D.2030802@stesmi.com> References: <4066021A.20308@pobox.com> <40660877.3090302@stesmi.com> <40660A3D.3020300@pobox.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from 1-2-2-1a.has.sth.bostream.se ([82.182.130.86]:40627 "EHLO K-7.stesmi.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S262101AbUC1HYL (ORCPT ); Sun, 28 Mar 2004 02:24:11 -0500 In-Reply-To: <40660A3D.3020300@pobox.com> List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Jeff Garzik Cc: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org, Linux Kernel , Andrew Morton Hi Jeff. >> What will happen when a PATA disk lies behind a Marvel(ous) bridge, as >> in most SATA disks today? > > Larger transfers work fine in PATA, too. Correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't the max number of sectors in a transfer limited to 255 instead of 256 because there were buggy drives out there before ? I seem to recall something like that but I could be wrong. Of course I hope nobody in his right mind would take those old things, slap a Marvel chip on it and sell it as new :) But someone else could buy one of those SATA<->PATA converter cables with a Marvel on it and run it with the old disk . Wouldn't those cases bug out? >> Is large transfers mandatory in the LBA48 spec and is LBA48 really >> mandatory in SATA? > > Yes and no, in that order :) SATA doesn't mandate lba48, but it is > highly unlikely that you will see SATA disk without lba48. Naturally, see my comment above regarding SATA<->PATA converter cables. > Regardless, libata supports what the drive supports. Older disks still > work just fine. Or.. should :) // Stefan