From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Mark Lord Subject: Re: No equivalent for ide-scsi available with the new PATA drivers? Date: Thu, 02 Aug 2007 08:24:50 -0400 Message-ID: <46B1CD12.3020800@rtr.ca> References: <46A4D91C.3090509@redhat.com> <20070723175239.54b721f1@the-village.bc.nu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from rtr.ca ([64.26.128.89]:3957 "EHLO mail.rtr.ca" rhost-flags-OK-OK-OK-OK) by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1755533AbXHBMYv (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Aug 2007 08:24:51 -0400 In-Reply-To: <20070723175239.54b721f1@the-village.bc.nu> Sender: linux-ide-owner@vger.kernel.org List-Id: linux-ide@vger.kernel.org To: Alan Cox Cc: Chuck Ebbert , IDE/ATA development list Alan Cox wrote: > On Mon, 23 Jul 2007 12:36:44 -0400 > Chuck Ebbert wrote: > >> People with IDE tape drives are complaining there's no ide-scsi >> driver available anymore with the new PATA layer. Is anyone >> working on one? > > It would make no sense. The libata layer is already using the SCSI > midlayer so compliant devices should already appear with the st driver. > > We might need some tape detect logic, but I don't have any tape devices > so its up to someone with a tape drive handy to help out... I have a PATA tape drive here somewhere. Does anyone out there want it, with the understanding that it be used to test/improve libata tape support? One thing about ATAPI tape drives, is that they generally won't "stream" with the generic SCSI st code. Instead, many of them will do a *very* sluggish stop/start stop/start stop/start kind of action when reading/writing bulk data. To get them to stream continously requires more driver intelligence, *especially* when sharing a cable with some other device. With an appropriate driver, tailored for ATAPI tape drives, they can run at full speed while sharing a channel with another active ATA/ATAPI device, both drives in use at the same time. Cheers