[t13] T10/04-262r0

Jeff Garzik jgarzik at pobox.com
Thu Aug 12 16:11:37 PDT 2004


* From the T10 Reflector (t10 at t10.org), posted by:
* Jeff Garzik <jgarzik at pobox.com>
*
Curtis Stevens wrote:
> My point is that the information is available to the bridge when the CDB is
> received.  I do not think we want to get into specifying the intervening
> layers, there are many possible models.  Software-wise, there is no
> difference between PIO multiple and PIO.  In both cases the ATA host needs
> the DRQ block size.  This will tell him how many blocks/interrupt to
> transfer.

In both my own software and in several vendor-written drivers, there 
_is_ a difference in code paths between PIO and PIO-Mult.  Just look at 
the code that's out there.


> I also do not believe the transport can be separated from the CDB because
> this has the transfer length in addition to the direction.  While I could
> place the protocol field in the CDB, there is no room for the length.  The
> ATA host also needs this information to properly complete a PIO transfer.
> For DMA transfers, this information may also be necessary for buffer size
> allocation, although some implementations could do it without buffers.

Er, huh?

Every ATA read/write command specifies transfer length and data 
direction already.  No need to store or derive that information elsewhere.


> The reason I included the goals is that, given the applications I stated,
> queuing is not required.  I am a member of the drive product team and
> understand the limitations.  However, support of queuing would require
> asynchronous status notification by the bridge to the application.  I don't
> think we really need to go there at this time.  If this pass-through becomes
> wildly successful and starts to be used in a performance environment, then
> we can upgrade it to provide more capability.  

I would prefer that we get it right the first time ;-)

ATA passthru can and will be used to verify the correctness of the 
underlying OS driver, bypassing all translation layers.

Lack of support for queueing, etc. prevents such verification.

	Jeff


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