Talk:Parallel ATA/archive old

Archives and page organization
Archives:

Archived topics page 1

Ramu50's removed reference material

Purpose of This article (Off Topic)

Purpose of This article (Off Topic) Part 2 - I archived it because issue is resolved. --Ramu50 (talk) 01:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

digressions from SSD criticism

HPA/DCO
It might be nice to see at least some mention of the HPA and DCO features added in later ATA revisions. -- TDM 13:58, 20 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Does someone know the meaning of these acronyms ..?, and their more specific context. Electron9 06:33, 11 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Host Protected Area and Device Configuration Overlay are features which allow one to hide areas of the physical disk from the operating system (and in the case of DCO, hide device features). I'm not an expert on these things and would love to see detailed articles on them.  I see that HPA is now a separate article and is linked to, so that's a good start.  DCO is newer and more mysterious and could definitely use more exposure. TDM 14:13, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * DCO now seems to have an article as well. Both should be mentioned and linked from this article. Jeh (talk) 07:27, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

ATA standards versions, transfer rates, and features
The table says on ATA/ATAPI-7 (ATA-7, Ultra ATA/133) that there is SATA/150. But where is SATA/300 ? It is not listed. -- Frap 16:03, 01 October 2006 (UTC)


 * It's certainly in the Serial ATA article. I'm not sure why SATA/150 is in the table in this article at all. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)


 * AT/ATAPI doesn't describe physical interface anymore - it could be Parallel ATA, Serial ATA or eSATA (and FireWire or USB for that matter), and any ATA/ATAPI drive will still respond to commands defined by the ATA/ATAPI standard (what's more, Serial ATA can also be used to interconnect SCSI devices as in Serial Attached SCSI). --Dmitry (talk •contibs ) 21:13, 5 October 2006 (UTC)


 * But there is a standard describing the physical connection. As a practical matter a "parallel ATA device" still follows the physical connection standards described in ATA/ATAPI 6. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Suggested fix for picture of cables
On my monitor I can't see any difference between the "80 conductor cable" and the "40 conductor cable" (second picture), except that the connectors are colored. I think we should find a picture that better shows the different conductor spacing. All of you others, get right on that. ;) Seriously, I'll see if I can't take one myself. Jeh 09:19, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Compatibility
I learned today that at least for 2.5" laptop drives, EIDE is incompatible with SATA, despite apparently being a different version of the same protocol. Could someone explain, in general, which of the protocols in the table are compatible with which others (in either direction)? -- Beland 23:18, 14 December 2006 (UTC)


 * And for 3.5" drives too. What is commonly called an IDE or EIDE drive uses a parallel interface. SATA is a serial interface. They are not electrically compatible, even though the commands and responses carried over the interface are the same. Jeh (talk) 09:36, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Apparent error in the "cable select" section
I think this passage is confusing or inaccurate:

"With the 40-wire cable it was very common to implement cable select by simply cutting the pin 28 wire between the two device connectors. This puts the slave device at the end of the cable, and the master on the "middle" connector. This arrangement eventually was standardized in later versions of the specification. If there is just one device on the cable, this results in an unused "stub" of cable. This is undesirable, both for physical convenience and electrical reasons: The stub causes signal reflections, particularly at higher transfer rates."

I would've fixed it myself, but I'm not sure I understand it. If early users were hacking ribbon cables to have an open pin 28, that would only work by cutting between the second and third connection. This would put the master to the middle connector, as the passage says. It says this arrangement was standardized in later versions, but all the ATA ribbon cables I've seen put the black master connector at the end, and the gray slave in the middle. I think what the passage means to say is that these early hacks had the opposite configuration of modern cables, which just leave gray pin 28 with no wire contact. Someone who understands what this paragraph is trying to say should probably fix it so someone doesn't put their cables on backward. --Loqi T. 02:51, 7 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I read it as saying
 * The most common way of implementing cable select prior to the 80 conductor era (though cable select back then was bloody rare anyway) was to cut one wire between the two device connectors (that is between the master device and the slave device). This put the slave connector in the middle which was undesirable.
 * This was standardised in some later version of the ATA spec (not having read the spec I can neither confirm nor deny this), it would also be usefull to know which version.


 * The next paragraph then goes on to say that this was changed with the introduction of 80 conductor cables which do indeed put the master device at the end.
 * Personally I have never seen a 40 wire cable that supported cable select.


 * I've seen a few that indeed had a "hole" punched out of the pin 28 wire between the second and third connetions, just like used to be done on floppy cables. But not many. Jeh (talk) 13:22, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

windows limitations
according to http://discountechnology.com/Seagate-160GB-IDE-ATA-100-Hard-Drive:
 * windows 2000 up to sp3 have a limitation of 137 GB
 * windows xp up to sp1 have a limitation of 137 GB

so we could add it asomewhere GNUtoo 12:50, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Found some further info at seagate d17 sata product manual google cache in section 3.8.1: W2000 Sp3 + XP Sp1 needs "Big Drive Enabler" Maxtor Knowledge Base Answer ID 960 MS KB 303013 Electron9 23:59, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

Compatability between types
I have a laptop with an ATA-4 hard drive. I would like to place a drive with an ATA-6 inside instead. Is that possible? Thanks! Toddmehl 22:38, 29 July 2007 (UTC))


 * Yes. However, assuming that the laptop's interface is ATA-4, your new drive will run no faster than ATA-4 allows and it will be subject to other ATA-4 limitations. A laptop old enough to have an ATA-4 interface may have BIOS issues preventing the use of larger drives, too. We should probably make this clear in the article. Jeh (talk) 04:06, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

PATA vs. SATA use widespreadness
The page says, about PATA that "[i]t provides the most common and the least expensive interface for this application". In light of motherboards sold currently (08/2007) and introduced in the past year, I'd say this is no longer true. Most of the motherboards sport only a single PATA connector, meant for DVD drive, and hard drives are expected to be attached to the SATA connectors. Also PATA versions of new drives have for some time been a bit harder to come by, and often a bit more expensive, or at least equal in price to SATA ones.

Thus I propose we'd change the page to reflect this. Something like "From 199x all the way to 2006 it provided the most common and least expensive.." Zds 11:15, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

P-ATA was in use before 199x. Also P-ATA will proberbly be used by embedded products for a long time. Since S-ATA interfaces are hard to find in a single chip (S-ATA PHY). Electron9 22:56, 16 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Addressed. What do you think now? Jeh (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

Size limits - Win98 64GB
Good article, but too bad it does not list all the size boundaries. This article seems excellent, mentions the Win98 64GB boundary: -69.87.199.99 19:53, 18 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure that restrictions imposed by operating systems belong in an article about the ATA interface and standards, since the ATA interface and standards have nothing to do with these restrictions. Jeh (talk) 22:26, 22 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Maybe we need a page summarising the common PC storage size limits and what part of the system (hardware, bios, OS etc) imposed them. Then linking to the appropriate articles for further details. Plugwash (talk) 22:42, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

comparing IDE/ATA speed with others
The speed presented in this article is in MB/s, generally accepted as the abbreviation of Megabyte per second. In the SATA and USB aritcles the speed is presented in Mbits/s (Megabits per second). Could someone check the speed of ATA in Mbits/s please? it is possible it is alredy in megabits but somone did not write it properly. --Iamcon (talk) 07:01, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * The speeds quoted here are the correct numbers for megabytes/second (where mega = 1,000,000). For example, UDMA 5 runs at 100,000,000 bytes/second. I hope this is unambiguous enough.


 * The reason SATA and USB quote in bits per second is that they are serial protocols: one bit is sent at a time. Parallel ATA is not like that; it sends 16 data bits at a time. In each case these are the "natural" units, according to the respective technologies.  They are also the same units and numbers quoted in industry standard specifications and sales information for these interfaces.


 * You can't just take the PATA number and multiply by eight to get a number comparable with serial protocols, either. SATA uses an encoding involving 10 bits on the wire for eight bits on the disk.  The "1.5 Gbit/sec" figure for the original SATA is the bit rate on the wire, not on the disk, and translates to 120 megabytes/second of actual data read or written.  USB uses a "bit-stuffing" protocol in which the ratio is not even constant. Jeh (talk) 07:32, 22 January 2008 (UTC)


 * Bits may be transferred by different means, it still boils down to effective transmission capacity per second. And associated latency. It's much harder to make comparisions when the same thing is noted in different units. Electron9 (talk) 15:02, 15 February 2008 (UTC)


 * The point I'm making is that "effective transmission capacity per second" is, at least, more accurate for PATA's "133 MB/sec", than for SATA's "1.5 Gb/sec": All issues of latency, inter-block delays, etc., aside, it is possible that there could be periods of time during which PATA would be transferring 133 MB/sec of end user data. This can't be said of SATA's "1.5 Gb/sec". Yes, switching units makes things even more confusing, but it would also be confusing to cite specs for these buses using units other than those commonly quoted. Adding corrections for e.g. 10 physical-layer bits to 8 transport-layer bits would simply compound the confusion, and would likely result in frequent "corrections" by new wiki editors who didn't stop to read the explanations.


 * I do think it would be worthwhile to "rationalize" all of these specs so that useful comparisons could be made (perhaps in a separate article pointed to by the PATA, SATA, USB, etc., articles), but this should be done in addition to, not instead of, cites of the "official" numbers using the usual units for each. Also it should be done with a LOT of explanation. Jeh (talk) 00:59, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * I suggest then to add a seperate value "effective transfer rate". Electron9 (talk) 07:12, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

apparent conflict between article page and other reference
From this article:
 * In Maximum security mode, you cannot unlock the disk! The only way to get the disk back to a usable state is to issue the SECURITY ERASE PREPARE command, immediately followed by SECURITY ERASE UNIT. The SECURITY ERASE UNIT command requires the Master password and will completely erase all data on the disk. The operation is rather slow, expect half an hour or more for big disks. (Word 89 in the IDENTIFY response indicates how long the operation will take.) [3] [4]

From the article in c't:
 * When setting his or her password the user can choose between the security levels "High" and "Maximum." When the level "High" is chosen the disk will accept either the user or the master password to unlock the disk or disable the protection function. When "Maximum" is the choice only the user password will provide access to the data. Should it get lost then the administrator with his or her master password will only be able to unlock the disk after forfeiting all the data stored upon it. Which step is accomplished by the command Security Erase: It erases all the information by writing zeros onto all sectors of the hard disk before again allowing access to it.

These seem contradictory.

Ealex292 (talk) 02:44, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Requested move
(really, requested revert of move)

Background and status
This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment".

User The Anome (talk) moved it (without any discussion) to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the justification given in the next subsection. My response describing my arguments for moving it back to "AT Attachment" follow his comments. Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

Reorganization Formatting of this section: Since some of the threads here have gone on for a while, I have created subsections for the thread started by each user inserted subsection headings in front of the first entry by each user who has contributed to this discussion. In some cases opinions on the issue were on users' talk pages and I have copied them here (with links to diffs to establish authorship).

The current status of the discussion appears to me to be: No consensus for requested new name ("AT Attachment") but there is less consensus (if such a concept even exists :) ) for the current name, i.e. for the recent move from AT Attachment to the current name, "Advanced Technology Attachment":

Support for renaming back to "AT Attachment": jeh, Tom94022, Frnknstn

"AT attachment": Iterator12n

Support for keeping "Advanced Technology Attachment": The Anome (but also suggested an alternative), Electron9

Support for something else: The Anome ("Advanced Technology Attachment with Packet Interface" as an alternative to the present "Advanced Technology Attachment"), Ramu50 ("IDE")

If you have an opinion on this, please contribute. And of course please sign with ~

The Anome
"AT Attachment" is not a good name for this article, since it's neither the common usage, nor the official name.

The Wikipedia naming convention is that we should in general use the common name of a thing as its article title, or, if there is sufficiently good reason, or a class exception to the general rule, the official name.

For example, the article on North Korea should either be called North Korea (which is the name almost universally used by others), or Democratic People's Republic of Korea (the full official name of the country in English). "DPR Korea" would not be a good name, since it is neither.

Thus, we should either call the ATA article "Advanced Technology Attachment" (common name), or "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" (official name). Even though it's officially incorrect, almost everyone reads ATA as meaning Advanced Technology Attachment -- not unreasonably, since "AT" originally stood for "Advanced Technology". I believe the article should stay with that name, according to Wikipedia policy.

To try to clarify this, I've now started the intro in the article with: "AT Attachment with Packet Interface, commonly known as Advanced Technology Attachment (ATA)..." -- The Anome (talk) 08:36, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I do not believe that is correct. "AT Attachment" (Google: 173,000 hits) seems to me to be far more common than "Advanced Technology Attachment" (61,000 hits). This is also my personal experience, not that that means anything.


 * Ok, I have to confess that I made a stupid error regarding the Google search. Since Google does not preserve case "AT attachment" produces a large number of false hits. However "Advanced technology attachment" is pretty darn specific. "AT attachment" while excluding "drive", "interface", and "cable" yields 124,000 hits. I propose that the difference between this number and the previous number (246,000) gives a decent approximation to the pages using "AT attachment" in the way we're interested here: 122,000.  "Advanced technology  attachment" with these same exclusions yields only 5270 hits, leaving 58,000 hits by the same rules. So "AT attachment" still wins, by two to one instead of three. I'd be interested in seeing what results others find from other searches. Jeh (talk) 05:50, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Furthermore the term "AT Attachment Interface" (note, without the "packet interface" part - more on this in a moment) occurs in many places in the spec document. The term "advanced technology" appears nowhere.


 * I think most people will use "ATA" in preference to either of these. (Google for "ATA drive": 246,000; "ATA interface", 417,000; and there are many others; of course there is overlap.) But "ATA" would not be a good name for the article as it is imprecise (there are many other things abbreviated "ATA").


 * I believe this leaves us with "AT Attachment" as the best compromise between correctness and common usage. It is also the name this article had for many years with no complaints.


 * I'm afraid you have introduced further confusion and error regarding "ATAPI". The full title of the specification document is e.g. "AT Attachment with Packet Interface - 6 (ATA/ATAPI-6)", but that does not mean that "ATAPI" may be used to refer to the entire specification, as you have done in at least one place in your recent edits.


 * The formal "short name" for the entire spec is "ATA/ATAPI-6" (the 6 is the version number). Note that the "ATA" part is not omitted, even though it seems redundant. "ATAPI" by itself does not provide what in the OSI model we would call the physical and data link layers; in "ATA/ATAPI" devices, the ATAPI commands and responses are sent and received via the ATA interface and protocol.


 * The spec describes the ATA physical interface, signaling protocol, and ATA commands and responses. An ATA hard drive uses only this portion of the spec. The spec also describes the "packet interface" protocol used by ATAPI devices to send and receive SCSI commands and responses over the ATA interface.


 * So... any ATAPI device (such as a DVD-ROM drive) that uses the "ATA" 40-pin connector and interface described here is also an ATA device - you can't officially call it just "ATAPI" even though that is very common. Technically it's an "ATA/ATAPI" device.


 * On the other hand an ATA hard drive is most emphatically not an ATAPI device.


 * Therefore using the term "ATAPI" as if to refer to the entire spec is incorrect. Writing out "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" as if to refer to the entire spec would be correct, but misleading.


 * I will try to come up with a reasonably succint way to explain all of these points and bring the whole article into alignment with these usages, pending further discussion here.Jeh (talk) 22:27, 23 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok, I have done that, but I still think we need to move the page back to "AT Attachment". According to WP:Requested moves this should be treated as a controversial move (since it was recently moved in good faith, etc.) so I am following the procedure given there.


 * Does anyone else have any comments about the name? Jeh (talk) 03:24, 24 June 2008 (UTC)

The OSI model that I mention was an example for the broadcasting infrastructure network, which is only a reference and has no relevance to ATAPI.(I never stated that ATAPI used it, read carefuly before you start posting nonsense.) --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Ramu, my mention of OSI was in response to The Anome's comments, not to yours. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

User The Anome (talk), who renamed it from "AT Attachment" to "Advanced Technology Attachment" in the first place, has said renaming it to "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" is "fine with me" (him): []. To me this is better than "Advanced Technology Attachment" but worse than "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:36, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Electron9
I think the article on "ATA" should be named 'Advanced Technology Attachment' and the reason for that is that almost all other technical terms are expanded to their full meaning to avoid future name collisions when new acronyms becomes established. ATA/AT attachment etc.. is just redirect linked to the article with fully expanded name. If there comes a new technology like "Arbitration Test Attachment".. should that also be named "AT Attachment" ..?.. *problem*. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Also beware of using google or any other search engine as a reference. It's all to easy to get suckered into 1000 flies can't be wrong, shit must be good ;-) Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming the spec can't be wrong about its own name. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

I also see ATAPI as extension to the original 'Advanced Technology Attachment' specification. Note that I do not call ATA a standard. Because ATA has always been a royal mess in all aspects. Electron9 (talk) 10:35, 25 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled out that way in the dcouments. Not even in version 1. It's always been just "AT Attachment". So that is the fully expanded name. But... thank you for your input. Jeh (talk) 17:47, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Tom94022
User Tom94022 writes (on my talk page, User talk:Jeh) []


 * FWIW the T13 committee home page begins "Technical Committee T13 is responsible for all interface standards relating to the popular AT Attachment (ATA) storage interface utilized as the disk drive interface on most personal and mobile computers today." so the article probably should be "AT Attachment" and not "Advanced Technology Attachment." While version 7 of specification is "AT Attachment with Packet Interface," historically it hasn't always been so and it looks like it will revert to "AT Attachment" in version 8.  I think most people will better understand AT Attachment (ATA) as the article title and we should drop "with Packet Interface" except where relevant. JEH, BTW see my other comments on my talk page Tom94022 (talk) 17:29, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

JEH, thanks for posting my talk - Just to make my position clear, the page should be reverted to AT Attachment title. Advanced Technology is just plain wrong. Tom94022 (talk) 21:27, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Ramu50
How about just renaming to IDE specification and redirect Advanced Technology Attachement, ATA and ATAPI to IDE specification. We can explain what is ATA (the cable), AT(cable material), ATA(specification), ATAPI. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:26, 24 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Renaming to "IDE" is not an option in this discussion. Once this question (rename back to "AT Attachment", or not) is resolved, you can bring that up as a proposed rename if you like. Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

But "Advanced Technology..." is not the "full meaning" of "AT Attachment". It is just "AT Attachment". Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

You are wrong Jeh, at the time period when IDE HDD was invented it can be considered. Actually Advanced Technology, ATA or Advanced Technology Attachment is synonymous to each other. --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No, I am not wrong. At the time the ATA standard was first created it was called "AT Attachment". Not "Advanced Technology Attachment". Download the various versions of the spec for yourself and see. In fact the word "advanced" does not even appear in the ATA-1 spec, let alone "advanced technology"! Whether or not it was actually considered considered "advanced technology" as a descriptive term (as opposed to being named that, which it decidedly was not) at the time is a different question, not relevant to the name of the page. But that question would probably be answered "no": It was not particularly "advanced," since SCSI already existed and SCSI was considerably more advance: SCSI had, for example, DMA capabilities before ATA existed, and years before ATA's DMA mode existed. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Again, "Advanced Technology Attachment" isn't the "full meaning." It's never spelled out that way in the dcouments Jeh (talk) 06:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

Says by who --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Says the specification documents, all the way back to version 1. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

By the way, which website is the official specifications, I am getting confused after searching numerous websites. --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * www.t13.org . For the specs themselves, see the "FTP" button in the left column. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

The reason why ATAPI was not used until UDMA came out was because of the reason (Note: I wrote days last week, was thinking of posting it, but still not quite sure). -- Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you were trying to say here, but I will say again: ATAPI and UDMA really have nothing to do with each other. In particular an ATAPI device can work just fine (although slowly, of course) using PIO modes. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

I really believe that we should name it to IDE Device, because there is a lot of problem regarding ATAPI. ATAPI (AT Attachment Packet Interface)-there is quite a confusion in the word “packet,” because initially packet is describe compress form of data (since military require communication, packet was generally accepted as a compress data)  --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No. "Packets" in this context have utterly nothing to do with compressing data. If you're thinking of "packet radio" (used in ham radio, btw, as well as in military comms), that was developed long after the use of packets in computer communications, and doesn't necessarily compress anything either. Please read Packet (information technology). You will find that compression is incidental to the packet concept. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

However, it is also very controversial that whether or not AT uses packet or not.--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The spec doesn't think it's controversial at all. It's very unequivocal about the matter. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

You'll have to know the actually instruction code to determine if they uses. So I think this is probably what the INCITS committee came up (a prediction)

Packet---compress data (for processor request through Southbridge) Packet---contain compress data or thread only (if on-board 48 bit LBA or built-in ECHS exists on the HDD) ATAPI-6 http://en.kioskea.net/pc/ide-ata.php3 Packet---contains data only, due to management software or some form of interpreter existence

If contain header, then it is for SANs not consumer product (because nowadays they are still insufficient understanding of how storage management really works, placing a specification wouldn't be wise, because DBMS is still being mapped out) and they are currently absoultely no understanding or any explanation as to why Connectivity such as JDBC or ODBC results in faster speed performance. -initially ANSI was going to place specification on IRQ, but it didn’t happen, because unprecedented of header were found. I predicited this, because in Pentium 4 systems, almost all computers avaliable IRQ are quite synonymous to each other Packet---contain binary header (IRQ) Packet---contain MAC address (for network packet)

Packet---contain loosely instruction code, for Southbridge to process (the simplest processing can be achieve the same way as the first Pong game console architecture (most people called it discrete form of processor, even though it is accepted, but everybody knows it is not the best term, because discrete of processor has a connotation of copying of processor). However, processor didn't exists at that stage of history, therefore you shouldn't accuse people of wrongdoings for the things they never done. --  --Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * What the T13 committee came up with is what's in the spec: Packets in ATAPI are used for encapsulation. Not for compression. There are "headers" in the packets because these packets carry SCSI commands and responses and SCSI commands and responses have headers. There isn't any doubt or ambiguity about it, no need to try to "predict" anything. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Questions, why does Wikipedia force me that I have to use br tags = =


 * I suppose because the automatic formatting rules that apply to talk pages do not take into account the way you would like your text to appear. Would you mind trying to conform to the standards of talk pages? It would make things much easier. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeh arguments and ramu50 is moved to Jeh's user page discussion. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * No, they're not. Jeh (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

Jeh, do you mind stop being an asshole. Stop using the discussion as your own page, I deleted your testing section.--Ramu50 (talk) 22:06, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I put that "testing" section there as a demonstration to the IP user who complained about the page reorg that "new section" wouldn't work. This has nothing to do with "using the discussion as my own page". Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

This article was originally (and for quite some time) named "AT Attachment". User The Anome (talk) moved it to "Advanced Technology Attachment", its present name, with the following justification. My response describing my arguments

Wikipedia is a user friendly page Encycloepdia, stop posting things as if you are bias on a user, you make everything sound like as if you want to post a legal threat. Who the hell cares it was originally named, people don't stupid things, just because you don't understand what other is thinking doesn't mean you are king. They understand their common sense, stating it that was originally named seems to be is more accusing ones' wrongdoing, what did you contribute to this discussion? --Ramu50 (talk) 22:15, 26 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I am proceeding with the formal procedure for a possibly contested rename—even though this is simply a revert of a previous rename that was not done through the formal procedure; I feel that going through the procedure will add legitimacy and permanence to the final decision, whatever it is. The Anome (talk) is fully aware of this process and of my text. He apparently does not think there's a problem with any of this; we had a perfectly civil exchange on his talk page. So I don't know why you're taking so much offense on his behalf. The material you quoted is there for information for newcomers to the discussion, and it is factual. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * One might care what it was originally named because this shows that the name "AT Attachment" is not a new name we're trying to apply now, but the long-standing name of the page for several years. Given that, I do not believe that the rename to "Advanced Technology Attachment" should have been done without at least some discussion. The history provides background for that opinion. You are free to disagree with that opinion, but the facts remain as they are. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * And speaking of formal procedures - and "user friendly" - several times now you have engaged in ad hominem attacks against me. Please review WP:CIVIL and WP:AGF. I am being civil with you; please reciprocate. Please do not take personal offense (or think that I am trying to provoke such a response when I point out that you have posted wrong information; it is not meant that way. I'm not saying anything about you personally, only about things you currently think you know that are not so. Fortunately you can easily learn better, but you will have to first admit that you have been mistaken, and second, make the effort to put aside your preconceived notions and do the necessary research. Actually downloading and reading the specs you're trying to write about would be an excellent start. Jeh (talk) 07:07, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Actually this is the only attack I done in Wikipedia, because you are being illegitimate. You and Anome (2 users doesn't represent a person idea), you guys DIDN'T openly discussed, you guys did the action without user agreement. So what if I openly attack, you are not being legitimate, so why should anyone be respecting you. Also both of us didn't give any facts of evidence at all, so you don't have more authortiy over other users, be mature idoit. --Ramu50 (talk) 16:02, 27 June 2008 (UTC)


 * How exactly am I being illegitimate by proposing a change and starting a discussion? How is this not an open discussion? I think TheAnome should have done the same, but that he did not does not make his action "illegitimate" either; he simply assumed there would be no objection. I have provided a large number of references to the true history of the names in the main article. No, I have no authority over other users—however, regarding personal attacks, I am following the rules under WP:CIVIL and WP:TALK while you are not. Please do not continue in this manner. Jeh (talk) 17:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Your illegimiacy includes the following
 * personal discussion between 2 users doesn't represent the majority decision
 * providing facts that doesn't have links, when resource is avaliable is not accepted in Wikipedia. Wikipedia require you to either cite it or link it. ATA 4 was clearly avaliable.
 * attitude towards other users as if posing a legal threat is not accepted, deal the legal system yourself. This includes implying a synonymous statement that is accusing a user' s wrongdoings without proof.

Change it! --Ramu50 (talk) 21:19, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

1. To recite the history yet again - I created a move proposal at WP:RM and in accordance with the guidelines I created a corresponding discussion page at talk:Advanced Technology Attachment. As it says in the template at the top of that page, that section is for "discussion." To get the discussion started I related the history behind the proposal. My discussion with user The Anome was part of that history.

I never said that it "represented the majority decision," nor said anything that could be interpreted that way. I invited discussion, meaning that the question was still open (and so it remains). Any sense that I am purporting to "represent the majority decision" is, as far as I can tell, purely your interpretation.

Indeed, if I thought that my discussion with The Anome represented a "decision" I simply would have renamed the page back to "AT Attachment". The fact that I did not do so, but created a move proposal and set up the discussion section instead, belies your entire premise.

Exactly what did I say that you interpreted as saying I was promoting The Anome and my discussion as a "majority decision"?

2. The references you're talking about (to the ATA specs) were in the main article all the time. I've added more since then that document the history of IDE and ATA, per your request - you are therefore in a very poor position to claim I'm providing unreferenced information. To refresh your memory, here is the statement in question:

Furthermore the term "AT Attachment Interface" (note, without the "packet interface" part - more on this in a moment) occurs in many places in the spec document. The term "advanced technology" appears nowhere.

See? It says "in the spec document" and the specs are linked from the main page. They've been linked from the main page all along. That is all the "reference" that is required in this case. Nevertheless I added more references from the main page that provided further documentation for the history of the names.

Exactly how can you claim that MY claim (quoted above) was unreferenced, when I referenced the spec, and the specs have long been linked from the article page? How can you continue to claim this when I have since provided more references? And how can you maintain such a position while providing no references at all in support of your views? Particularly your recent addition to the article page?

3. I have no idea what you mean by "as if posing a legal threat". If you mean the things I wrote regarding the rename, I have addressed that already above. If you mean something else, what is it? Please be specific. Jeh (talk) 01:40, 28 June 2008 (UTC)

(above text, starting from Ramu50's edit of 21:11, 27 June 2008 (UTC), moved back here from my talk page, by me. Ramu50 had moved it there, minus my edit of 01:40 28 Jun. I was going to continue that thread there, but I've changed my mind; Ramu50 has no right to dictate that a discussion be moved from this page. Ramu50: please note that moving things from article talk pages, other than for archiving purposes, goes against WP guidelines -- see WP:TALK. Jeh (talk) 02:36, 29 June 2008 (UTC) )

Frnknstn
All the arguing about procedure in the world won't resolve this issue. ATA is the AT Attachment; the attachment for the AT computer. Expanding the acronym is not nessisary, and wrong in my opinion (unless we also expand AT (form factor) to 'Advanced Technology (form factor). ATAPI is also clearly out, as it does not refer the the topic as a whole. I support renaming this page to 'AT Attachment'. Frnknstn (talk) 12:16, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

jeh
My position is simple. The actual name is "AT Attachment". Some intermediate versions of the documents have been called "AT Attachment with Packet Interface" but that is the document title; the standard (or spec or whatever it is) is referred to within the document as simply "AT Attachment". It is never spelled out as "Advanced Technology". So the original article title ("AT Attachment") was and remains the correct one. Those who type "advanced technology attachment" will be served by a redirect as they were before. "ATA" of course goes to a disambiguation page. Jeh (talk) 01:50, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

My opinion is that the conclusion here is that:

- as the move to the current name, "Advanced Technology Attachment" was not discussed, and

- after discussion there is no consensus for the current name, and

- there is support for the original name from the defining authority on the topic, the T13 committee,

Therefore the move should be reverted, the article should be moved back to "AT Attachment", with a redirect from "Advanced Technology Attachment". However since "AT Attachment" is now a redirect page with more than one item in its history this will require admin assistance. Thank you. Jeh (talk) 02:52, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Iterator12n
Considering all of the above, and WP:MOS in particular, the article should be titled "Advanced technology attachment," with only one capital. The abbreviations AT and ATA may be introduced in the article's leader. -- Iterator12n   Talk 03:47, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * But it's not an "abbreviation"! "AT Attachment" is the actual name! ...oh well. Jeh (talk) 03:50, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * From WP:MOS: "The first letter of the first word, letters in acronyms, and the first letter of each word of a proper noun are capitalized; all other letters are in lower case." Proper nouns! We can talk about AT, maybe, but "attachment" certainly is not a proper noun.  Cheers, I'm out of here.  --  Iterator12n   Talk 03:57, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ah, ok. I wasn't considering the capitalization issue at all. "AT attachment", then? But it's moot; an admin has decided there was no agreement, so has declined the request. Jeh (talk) 04:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)
 * FWIW, AT attachment it is, were it not for admins - they need better training in policies and guidelines, LOL. As said, I'm out of here.  --  Iterator12n   Talk 04:27, 22 July 2008 (UTC)


 * On third thought I take it back. "AT Attachment" is the name of the specification being described. You can't call the article "AT attachment" any more than you would call the article about Tolstoy's famous book "War and peace". Still moot unless I can appeal the admin decision. Jeh (talk) 15:35, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

request for clarification on maximum security mode
OK...so this means once this mode is entered, the only way to use this other than a heater and doorstop is to erase the media and start again? I don't know the specification...do you mean instead "if the password is provided incorrectly too many times?

(comment text added by Rchandra to the article on 24 May 2008. Copied here by Jeh (talk) 19:15, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

"List of media drives interface (SSD)"
I'm quite sure I'm not the only person that doesn't understand what the hell this section is supposed to mean... The title says it's a list, speaks about the mostly unrelated SD and CF formats, mentions the responsibilities of a democratic government regarding the definition of SRAM and DRAM and volatile memory, and so on... I can't see anything at all that can be "saved" so I'm deleting the entire section. 195.23.218.249 (talk) 20:46, 28 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Correct, you're not the only person. Thank you! Jeh (talk) 02:21, 29 June 2008 (UTC)

I am rewriting the Storage Media Interface and placing them back on. Go read the evidence that I provided and if you disagree provide sufficient, logical evidence to backup. --Ramu50 (talk) 01:14, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The burden is on you to provide evidence of your claims. You have not done so. Jeh (talk) 13:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

"Major Solutions to AT Attachment; Discussion page"
So ever since when I try to contribute to Advanced Technology Attachment article, the only thing that I have done legitimately is the proposal of organizing the page (now in archive page). My attempt to try to provide additional info, it is totally too narrowminded and based on my idea only, therefore it has cause many unncessary problems. Sorry for the cause.

Jeh DO NOT REVERT the info back, because my contents are wrong and I don't want people using incorrect info, so I am going try to improve my article to the best of best, if all goes well I will place the new version, but for the time being I will try not to contribute to this discussion (self-evulation). --Ramu50 (talk) 00:04, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Info have been move to this page. Do not turn it into an archive page. --Ramu50 (talk) 00:05, 1 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Really, you should not delete material from article talk pages, except to move it to an archive of the same article talk page. Please see WP:TALK for policies and guidelines in this area. I will let this stand for now per your wishes but in the future if you don't want things preserved forever on article talk pages, don't post them there in the first place. Everything you post is always retrievable anyway from the page histories whether you move it to your own archive page or not, you know. Jeh (talk) 23:53, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Place Word DMA as stub
I propose we should integrated Word DMA as a stub article to Advanced Technology Attachment, anyone agrees? WDMA (computer) --Ramu50 (talk) 02:23, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You mean merge it with this article? Maybe, but then the section containing that info should also explain the ATA PIO modes (merged from the article on PIO, which really needs to talk much more about PIO in general (eg to serial and parallel ports), right now it is too specific to ATA) and also the UDMA modes. Then you will have doubled the size of this article. Maybe instead, put all three of those into a separate article on "AT Attachment transfer modes". Otherwise I think the existing articles on PIO and WDMA should stay as they are, and an article on UDMA added. That can be an easy next step. Adding an article is always easier than merging. Jeh (talk) 13:09, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Solid State Drives Criticism
If you think I am wrong on SSD, then at least I am on the right track according these recent news reference.


 * No. As I will show below, absolutely nothing that you have written, and none of your references, support your claim that SSD are not supported by the ATA spec.


 * Yes, you have found a few references for performance and reliability issues, but even if these are true, the ATA/ATAPI standards have never not supported a device because it wasn't reliable: consider ZIP drives, for example... or did you never hear of the "click of death"?


 * Accordingly I have again removed your speculation from the article. I must ask you to refrain from disrupting this article in the future. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Your inability to provide sufficient reference has nothing got to do with me. From the beginning I try to help, but apparently you constantly didn't care so I don't give a fuck of your suggestions. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:24, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * My inability to provide references? That's a laugh. In the first place, as I have told you several times before, you are the one making the extraordinary claim that SSDs are "not really supported" by ATA, therefore it is up to you, not me, to provide extraordinary proof. In the second place, I have supplied more than sufficient references that you are wrong about your claim, in the form of the ATA documents. The ATA documents explicitly mention solid state drives! It is incumbent upon you to provide references to the contrary. Not claims that SSD are slow or unreliable, because that says nothing about ATA support, despite your equally unfounded ideas about governments and liability and so on. In insisting on putting your unfounded opinion into the article you are not "helping", you are being disruptive, and furthermore you are in violation of WP:POINT. Jeh (talk) 23:48, 12 July 2008 (UTC) edited: Jeh (talk) 00:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

SSD read and write speed is in no way comparable to HDD, considering the amount of read/write head being developed, they can easily surpass SSD.


 * Relative performance is not a concern of the ATA spec. Just because one device is slower than another does not mean the slower device is not supported by ATA. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

SSD has no stability or reliable technologies such as RAID, TCQ, NCQ...etc.


 * RAID is not a concern of the ATA spec for any device, as RAID arrays are built from collections of ATA devices; RAID is not mentioned in ATA at all. Incidently it is quite possible to build a RAID array of ATA SSD (as mentioned in the white paper YOU linked!) just as it is of ATA hard drives.


 * Command queueing a) has nothing to do with "stablility or reliable"; it's a performance feature and b) didn't exist on ATA hard drives until quite recently, and still is in no way required, yet ATA supports them; so what does this have to do with whether or not a device is supported? Is it your claim that all PATA hard drives that don't support TCQ or NCQ are unsupported by ATA for that reason? Nonsense. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

For the current stage they can only depend on the legacy technologies such as FPM, BEDO, DDR, QDR. Also even SSD utilize QDR, it won't help at all, because in Hard Drive when you send a request the on-board processors can already direct into any of read/write head responsible for each platter, what SSD have to go through bus lane, wasting time (which ultimately means latency issues). Also SSD is very dumb in selecting DRAM and SRAM which are violatile, and unable to store informtaion, they only they manage to store info is based on the SLC/MLC design architecture and speed is achieve through the NAND gates. When it is store at non-violatile layer and instantly go throught NAND gates to become violatile, the state change will not be stable when stored in storm. Because violatile information are heavily depedant on request, not instant state changes. Even scratchpad caches rely more on partitioning as seen on Intel Larrabbee, that utilize share scratchpad partitioning.


 * All of this is well below the level at which ATA is concerned. ATA defines an electrical interface and a signaling protocol over that interface. It really doesn't care how the device stores the data, or how the data is moved between the actual storage mechanism and the ATA interface. If it meets the recommendations for the electrical interface and the signaling protocol, and if it acts like a disk when you send disk commands to it, then that's all ATA cares about. It could be using core memory for all ATA knows or cares. Sorry but these claims of yours are really unsupportable in light of what the ATA spec is actually about. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Actually it is a concern. First I stated SSD is not a good choice, but if some corporation want to go against I am ok with it. However, if ATA want to take responsibilities for the documentation they are required to include these concerns for safety measure, also they need to mention this (maybe not every detail about the technologies such as RAID), because each manufacturer can choose what technology to implant. ATA apparently didn't achieve that minimal task, so what makes ATA so reliable? --Ramu50 (talk) 21:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You are simply wrong. The ATA documents are not at all involved with the reliability of the storage medium. The fact that one medium may be less reliable than another does not mean that the less reliable one is not supported by ATA. Jeh (talk) 22:03, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

This info is only showing the disapproving SSD (since it was an introduction only I didn't plan on referencing this any further so don't discuss this. It was much more of a satire.) You can delete this if you want to

Mtron SATA II SSD, world fatest SSD, transfer rate they have develop no technology at all, which they should of, since they uses a bus. read 130MB/s write 120MB/s 19,000 IOPS by the way, SSD developement didn't start recently.


 * I see no claims there that SSD is not supported under ATA. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

You may argue Samsung 2.5" 256GB MLC SSD is better, so here is the spec read 200MB/s write 160MB/s MTBF 1 million hours -it sucks, considering nowadays many computer developer need 1TB and require things like RAID. Even most of my friend who played a lot of games or people who just like to do a lot of streaming media, easily use up 750GB. Note: I am not referring to enthusaist, just those highschool junkies.


 * So "it sucks" because it's not big enough for you? It's big enough for a lot of people, you know. Anyway, how does this support your claim that ATA does not support SSD? Are you now claiming that no hard drive smaller than 1 TB is supported by ATA either, because according to your storage needs anything smaller than that "sucks"? Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Removing this info, because this was my unncessary satire


 * Please do not remove material from article talk pages. Jeh (talk) 23:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Also I provide 2 evidence before I move by article to my own user page that SSD causes more problem. * Toshiba Dynabook SSD (notebook) problem


 * That article speaks only of a production lag in the needed SSDs. This does not say anything about reliability. There is certainly nothing there to support your claim that SSD are not supported by ATA. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am rechecking on the Toshiba Dynabook I think provided the wrong links. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

* Dell notebook using SSD (20~30% return rate) --Ramu50 (talk) 20:12, 30 June 2008 (UTC)


 * Did you actually read that article? Beyond the first sentence? I think you meant to refer to the earlier article linked in the first sentence: . But even there I see no evidence or even claims that ATA does not support SSD. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

According to Dell's Camden, the customers seem to be pleased with the benefits of the solid- state storage technology and especially their reliability. Moreover, market analyst Gartner reveals that the use of hard disk drives is one of the two most important factors that lead to system failure. Given the fact that solid-state drives have no moving parts, they are increasingly resistant to mechanical shocks and vibrations. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Dell notebook was a reference to reliability problem. As previously stated that SSD is not a good solution (this is personal viewpoint don't argue.) Also whether or not it is a good solutions, nevertheless the ATA are responsible for all SSD product. Look at IEEE, whenever a router is produced they have to verify by IEEE in order to state it is IEEE compliant. Did ATA/ATAPI took that responsibility, no it didn't. Is ATA/ATAPI responsible, of course they are responsible. Was ATA/ATAPI wanting the best for SSD, yes it was, but it clearly wasn't sufficient. By the way even if ATA/ATAPI was reliable Dell give absoultely no proof in any of their site that Hard Disk system failure was due to shocks and vibrations. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:49, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * One, the Gartner Group is a completely independent organization. Two, everybody knows that some hard drive failures are caused by shocks and vibrations; this does not require proof. If you insist on proof, look at the shock "g" ratings on hard drives vs. SSDs. Three... sorry but you are completely misunderstanding the roles of industry standards bodies such as IEEE and ANSI T13. The IEEE publishes standards such as 802.11*, but they are not an enforcement body and they do not issue certificates of compliance or anything like that for wireless routers or APs. (The FCC does, but only for frequency spectrum compliance, they have nothing to say about the protocol as it is not in their purview.) Similarly, ATA/ATAPI is not responsible for anything a manufacturer might design with an ATA/ATAPI interface. They publish a set of specs for that interface, and it is up to manufacturers to meet it... but the T13 committee, ANSI, or INCITS do not in any way approve or certify devices and therefore are absolutely not responsible for devices' behavior or problems. If they were, legions of ZIP and JAZ drive users could have sued the T13 committee over "click of death" problems. There is not even anything in the ATA documents that asserts or even implies "if your device complies with these recommendations it will work." The reason there is no such assertion is exactly the point that there is so much outside of the purview of these interface specs that T13 and similar standards bodies simply cannot guarantee performance or reliability. Now you can take the opinion that they should take that responsibility, but the fact is that they do not. Neither does the IEEE. Jeh (talk) 23:35, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Also they don't have buffer cache (I don't think I need reference for buffer cache, everybody know this).


 * Where do you come up with this stuff? Nothing in ATA requires the presence of a buffer cache on the drive, so this does not support your claim that ATA does not support SSDs. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also since supermagnetism is a natural properities of nature in some rare earth metals, therefore it uses less power. As seen the following 2 article
 * SSD are not power efficient.
 * Western Digital, GreenPower series technology

the technology I refer to are IntelliPower, IntelliSeek and IntelliPark developd by Western Digital Note: there I think there was 3 article on Greenpower series technology, I will try to fetch the other two.


 * Nothing in ATA requires any of these technologies, so this does not support your claim that ATA does not support SSDs. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

(At this stage of technology, we are actually having more problem, as mentioned in biometrics architecture in National Geographic. (e.g. solar panels architecture actually came from the mosquitos retinal architecture ability to capture more light than any technologies that we current have). Moreso, we barely even understand about how the elementary particle works, thus the proven evidence may still be theories only.


 * This doesn't support your claim either. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Note: biometrics architecture is an incorrect term, I can't recall it, but I would update the reference by the end of this week. Note: I am not good with IOPS and MIPS = = ... --Ramu50 (talk) 00:16, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

2008 June 5 revision of Ramu50's talk content Main title: Major Solutions to AT Attachement; Discussion page Subtitle: New questions and suggestions

(proceeding signing --[User:Ramu50|Ramu50]] (talk) 22:18, 5 July 2008 (UTC))


 * I wish you would comply with standard talk page formatting. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

To Jeh, yesterday while reading SSD history I have found 2 proof in regards to my previously references information that includes ATAPI intention towards CompactFlash, I would try to give the info today. Jeh, in the society I have a lot social experience (in companionship relations) technical and buisnesse orientation, my words of previous reference may sound stupid and idoic for sure. But I can tell that for I have change more people than you, such as Logan (a famous reviewer) of YouTube's TigerDirectBlog. 15 YouTubers (each with at least 10,000 subscribers) have come to me to ask for me opinions as advising. Several marketing and gaming companies have requested more than 5 survey wanting my viewpoints. My baseline of foundation is well-solid rounded, I think you should try to be more openminded, and so should ALL of the people in this discussion. Have a great day, to all. --Ramu50 (talk) 18:47, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm afraid your "baseline of foundation" does not appear at all solid in this field. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Previously in my statement about CompactFlash Card, I hinted that that ATAPI only include CompactFlash for safety protection. The evidential proof is here section October 2007

Addonics Technologies launched what it called a "low cost large capacity SSD" platform. It's a PCI card that can be installed with 4 Compact Flash cards with inbuilt RAID support. The risk with this approach is that most CF cards aren't designed for intensive write operations and don't have wear levelling controllers. That means if a user installs such a product in a server application - as a lower cost alternative to a true SSD - the storage media may fail in  under a year.


 * But some CF devices do have wear leveling. Generally if you buy a no-name or store-branded one at a bargain price it will not; but modern high speed name brand units do. In any case nothing here says "and therefore, CF is not really supported by ATA", nor anything remotely similar. i.e. it does not support your claim. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

SSD are currently divided into 2 types: RAMD SSD (SRAM & DRAM) & Flash SSD (NOR-flash) -however, since SRAM & DRAM can't store things non-violatility they require SLC, MLC (meaning layered storage), but the technology of NAND gates invented by Intel & Mtron together didn't help the transistion of Storage (in the past considered as slow speed) to high speed thus resulting unstable (such as likelihood of crashing, self-locking, bugs, non-respondant looping) ATAPI choose not include most of the specification. And when Samsung invented a new type of flash memory called PRAM in Sept 2006 predicted to replace in next decade.
 * The term next decade was used at Sept 2006 so it would be (2018).


 * Well really, "next decade" in this context would not mean "ten years from now", it would mean "in the next calendar decade", which means anything from 2010 or 2011 to 2019 or 2020. If they meant "in ten years" they would have said that. And if they did mean that, ten years from 2006 would be 2016, not 2018. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Once again: ATA doesn't really concern itself at all with how the data is stored. SRAM, DRAM, NOR, NAND, magnetic cores... ATA doesn't care. Heck, the device beyond the ATA interface could be a block-addressable tape drive. ATA does not concern itself at all with the underlying storage technology, only with the behavior of the device at the ATA connector. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Jeh you previously state that there is nothing preventing ATAPI from including CompactFlash, well you are so wrong, because the evidence provider (StorageSearch) was the leader of SSD marketing, they provide several publication on the SSD. Including: Solid State Disks Buyers Guide released in Q2 2003 and released to OEM manufacturer in Jan 2005 which generated pressure towards ATAPI.


 * I really don't see how anytyhing there makes me "so wrong." ATA-4 came out in August 1998 so how this buyers guide dated 2003 could have put "pressure towards ATAPI" is beyond me. Nor do I see any statement that can be construed as even slightly supporting your claim that SSD are not supported by ATA. In fact they never mention ATA or PATA, other than in the picture at the top, captioned "2.5" 128GB industrial PATA SLC flash SSDs". Now maybe I am just foolish or stupid this morning but this seems to me to be saying that these SSDs are PATA devices.  Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also there was pressure from (Quantum, Imperial Technology and SEEK Systems Solid Data Systems) who published the Concept White Paper doubting SSD futures as stated


 * Well at least that paper is from 1997. But I see no evidence there of "pressure from" these companes to the T13 committee. In fact I don't see why any "pressure" would be needed. Again: ATA doesn't care about the storage technology! If your device acts like a disk at the ATA connector, then it meets the requiremnts of ATA. CFA asked for a few new features, and after due consideration, the T13 committee added them to ATA-4. Where is your evidence for "pressure" being applied? And even if it was applied, why would this support your claim that SSD are not really supported? However section 6.13 got into the spec it is extremely clear that SSDs in general are supported by ATA. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Two, far from "doubting SSD futures", it says things like

Moving these files to SSD can dramatically improve user level response time.


 * It also says, by the way,

SSDs operate exactly like magnetic disks and can be configured as a RAID rank for the ultimate in performance.


 * which counters your claim above about RAID, and supports my claim that as long as it acts like a disk, it's a disk as far as ATA is concerned. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Most I/O bottlenecks are caused by unusually active files as indexes, authorization files, job controller, common code libraries, operating system commands, etc. They receive a  disproportionate percentage of a system's overall I/O requests. According to a study by Princeton University and Digital Equipment Corporation, less than 5% of the data is  responsible for 50% of the disk accesses.


 * Uh, yeah. Like I said. Again - NONE of the above supports your claim that ATA does not support SSD. How you think it does support your claim is really quite beyond my imagining. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Also see it for your self that ATA/ATAPI-4 didn't even clarify on CompactFlash specification

6.14 Removable Media Status Notification and Removable Media feature sets This section describes two feature sets that secure the media in removable media storage devices using the ATA/ATAPI interface protocols

Why is the name of the protocol not mentioned?


 * They did name the protocol, "ATA/ATAPI". That section is not specific to CompactFlash. In fact it has nothing do with with CompactFlash. Section 6.13 is the one that defines the CFA feature set, which has nothing to do with "Removable Media Status Notification and Removable Media feature sets". 6.14 just happens to follow 6.13. 6.14 could apply to any ATA device with removable media -- typically, for example, an optical drive or ZIP or JAZ drive that can be told to ignore the eject button. As a matter of fact this could not apply to CF because if you remove a CF card you are removing the device (along with the media, of course). 6.14 applies to devices that support removal of the media while leaving the device connected and still responsive on the ATA interface. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

If ATA/ATAPI-4 recognized CFA association they would of mentioned please refer to (CF+ and CompactFlash Specification Revision 4.1, publication date 02/16/07) which they never did.

--Ramu50 (talk) 22:22, 6 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually yes, they did. From the "definitions" section:

3.1.9 CFA: The CompactFlash Association that created the specification for compact flash memory that uses the ATA interface.


 * And in Annex D, "Bibliography":

CompactFlash Association Specification Revision 1.2


 * All of the above are from ATA-4. Later versions of ATA make additional references. In ATA-5, see section 2.3 and A.6, for example. Jeh (talk) 12:36, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

Responses to SSD criticism points from the article (now removed)
Do you mind asshole Jeh, I just separate them for better reading, and you revert them back unncessarily. Hey I open this discussion, so use my format not your own. By the way your lack of skills of providing evidence by separating my words is possibly the user in the entire Wikipeida that uses that dumb method, yet you called yourself you understand about ATA/ATAPI, what a laugh, can't even write a good technical writing format to refute to others and you give nearly no evidence at all except the ATA/ATAPI documentations. --Ramu50 (talk) 02:34, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * How about you try following the guidelines set out in WP:TALK and WP:CIVIL? Jeh (talk) 09:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

How about no, ever since I started the topic its always been you, you and you complaining me being off topic and evidential problem or what not. Now I provide the evidence you still got a problem? Hell no, I am organizing into better archive, I give you enough legitmacy onto providing info this and apparently you are still not satisfy, so since your method doesn't work. You start following my method for a change. Yea other people disagree with my with viewpoints, and they can attack altogether and I don't care, it is reality and I am willing to face it and in the end at least learn something rather than being you all negative. --Ramu50 (talk) 02:38, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You have not provided any evidence that supports your claim. Absolutely none of the references you provided contained anything that could in any way be interpreted as even hinting that solid state drives are not supported by ATA. The ATA documents state explicitly that SSD are among the devices that are provided for; they even have a few features, the "Compact Flash Association Feature Set", for operations specific to SSD. Those documents represent the ultimate authority on this question, and they thoroughly disprove your case. In response you have provided nothing that says anything about ATA not supporting SSD. Your claims seem based on some nebulous ideas about "pressure" being applied to T13 (you have provided no evidence of that) or of legal liability over reliability issues (but it has never been part of T13's job to require or enforce claims of reliability; witness the "runs" of ATA drive failures over the years, the ZIP and Jaz drives' "click of death" problems, etc., etc.). You have not provided any evidence of those ideas either, other than your own words. That leaves us (still) with the ATA docs as having the final say: SSD are supported by ATA. The End. Jeh (talk) 09:12, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I answer claim by claim because you make a great many claims and if I were to respond to them all at the end of your text I would have to do a great deal of quoting, which would vastly increase the size of this page, which has already gone on for far too long already. I put them back because preserving the order within a discussion is important. They are your words, you should stand by them. If your claims can't stand up to this sort of point-by-point rebuttal that is probably a good sign that you shouldn't have made them. Jeh (talk) 09:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * As for evidence, I really don't need to give any evidence at all. You are the one challenging the status quo therefore it is up to you to provide evidence. You have not done so. I know you think you have provided evidence but nothing in any of the references you provided states "solid state drives are not supported by ATA", or anything that can be interpreted in that way. I know, I read all of them and even followed links within them. Jeh (talk) 09:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Yes, you have provided some evidence supporting SSD reliability concerns, but that is not a reason to think SSD are not supported, despite your beliefs about "pressure" or "government responsibility". T13, ANSI, INCITS, etc., are not government organizations nor anointed by any government, other than in terms of their tax status. Note also that nothing in the ATA docs guarantees any level of performance or reliability. Jeh (talk) 09:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Now again, I do not need to provide any evidence, but as "the best defense is a good offense" I will once again point out that the ATA docs explicitly a) say that "a device" could be anything that meets their interface requirements, so it is not required to be rotating magnetic media; b) make provisions expressly for solid state drives; and c) mention solid state drives by that exact name. The ATA documents are the final authority on what ATA supports or allows. So this is absolutely compelling evidence against your position and you have provided nothing that even hints at making claims, let alone evidence, to the contrary. Jeh (talk) 09:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Point # 1 Throughout the history of SSD from 1970s RAM SSD (DRAM & SRAM based) and Flash SSD (NOR-flashed based).


 * This sentence no verb. Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * That is one of your buisness, you are off-topic. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Point being that I can't respond when you don't say anything intelligible. When you don't say anything intelligible you are not supporting your case, either. Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The ATA/ATAPI and INCITIS doesn't support any of the media storage interface such as SATA-I/O, PCMIA, CFA, MMCA, SD Card Association, SD Card Association and CE-ATA as they only provide the general conceptual knowledge of the specification. .They don't refer back to any of the details such as I/O Output (Read & Write) Timing Section, IDE PIO mode, MWDMA, Ultra DMA...etc thereof.


 * SATA didn't exist in ATA-4 time. PCMCIA was not referenced in ATA-4 but is referenced in ATA-5 (section A.5). The CompactFlash connector is also referenced in ATA-5 (Section A.6). MMC and SD don't matter as these connectors are not designed for direct attachment to ATA, whereas CF was. There is no need to "refer back to any of the details" in the CF or PCMCIA connector descriptions because they are already in the document; they are assumed to apply to these connectors just as they do on the familiar 40-pin ATA connector. Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

In the SSD industry, as of Q1 2008, the interface being used are Infiniband, Fiber Channel, CompactFlash and ExpressCard.


 * So what? InifinBand, FC, and ExpressCard have nothing to do with ATA. CF does and is clearly supported by the spec.


 * Apparently there is every reason to refer back the documents that the association made, such as if you use CompactFlash, then you follow CompactFlash association. The government body lay trust on the association for the consumers' safety, if documentation are well organized and accident happen the association can be fined or put in custody. Apparently Jeh, assumptions in the society is not accepted as part of the computing ethics concerns.


 * Your notions about the role of the government and these "associations" are pure fantasy on your part. ANSI, IEEE, etc., have no government-defined position as standards-setting bodies. They are indpendent organizations, not part of the government, and their recommendations and other documents do not carry the force of law. Now it is true that the government may adopt certain of those recommendations, and require compliance with those recommendations for products bought by the government (such as the US Government does re. Posix), but that is a different thing and still does not imply any legal liability on the part of the IEEE or ANSI or whatever, only on the part of the vendors who assert that their products comply with the recommendations. Jeh (talk) 00:09, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Regarding InfiniBand, FC. Explain and prove to me to why AoE, FCoEe existed (ATA over Ethernet, Fiber Channel over Ethernet). --Ramu50 (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * What does this have to do with your assertion about SSDs? Nothing. Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

Point # 2 The lack of referencing and approving the association is possible that pressurize by the doubting of many publications from marketers such as StorageSearch & large corporations such as Quantum, Imperial Technology and SEEK Systems Solid Data Systems as seen in the thier white paper.


 * There is completely sufficient "referencing and approving." Your claims about "pressurize by the doubting of many publications" makes no sense. I have seen nothing in any of the papers you have linked any evidence of "pressure"; that seems to me to be pure speculation on your part. Even if proven, claims about "pressure applied to ATAPI" (not that ATAPI has anything to do with SSDs) would still not mean that SSD were not "really" supported by ATA. Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Nor have you presented anything substantive to support that claim, other than spews of mostly inapplicable and irrelevant acronyms and buzzwords that serve only to prove that you don't really know what ATA is all about or what it is really specifying. Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I repeat: Anything that connects to an ATA connector (or, as of ATA-5, a CF connector or a PCMCIA connector) and acts like a disk drive as defined in the ATA spec, is ipso facto supported by ATA. In fact ATA does not care one whit about reliability, or performance (except as concerns the waveform timings), or any details of the implementation beyond the ATA connector. These are all red herrings you have introduced. Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * The burden is on you to prove your extraordinary claim. All you have done so far is to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a) there are a few people expressing concerns about SSD reliability and b) you really really don't like SSD. Neither of these points supports your claim that ATA does not support SSD.  Jeh (talk) 12:57, 7 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well since you have the stated the obvious that ATA doesn't care about reliability, then critism can be made, because obviously they don't care about the law and this has been happnening ever since Optical, various PC Card interface and some magnetic tape drive have been introducted. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * You can make all the criticisms you like... in your own blog, perhaps. But nothing here supports your claim that SSD are not supported by ATA. And, what law are you talking about? Again, ATA's documents do not carry the force of law and do not imply any legal liability on the part of T13, ANSI, etc. Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Indeed, my claim that ATA doesn't care about the storage technology is completely and sufficiently backed by paragraph 3.1.7 in the "definitions" section of ATA-2, and similar paragraphs in all subsequent versions:

3.1.7 device: Device is a storage peripheral. Traditionally, a device on the interface has been a hard disk drive, but any form of storage device may be placed on the interface provided it adheres to this standard.


 * Even ATA-1, although titled "AT Attachment Interface for Disk Drives", included this definition:

3.1.1 ATA (AT attachment). ATA defines a compatible register set and a 40-pin connector and its associated signals.


 * You see? Not a word there about rotating magnetic disks. ATA is only concerned with how you talk to the storage device, not with the technology of the actual data storage.


 * That has nothing got to do with me, my topic is about ATA responsibility, reliability towards SSD interfaces. Even if my I did stated before that ATA isn't a peripherial I already told you I am not using that information. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Well, if you can find something in the ATA docs that says something like "a device not meeting the following performance and reliability standards is not considered supported..." then you will have a case. (You won't find it.) Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * This question is settled unless you find a way to authoritatively refute these sections of the ATA documents. Not with your speculations and inferences about "pressure" or unreliability, but with an authoritative source—actually, considering the extraordinary nature of your claim, I think at least three independent, authoritative sources are required—that expressly state that SSD are in some way "not really supported" by ATA. Verb. Sap.: Just because you don't like SSD, even if you find compelling reasons to not like SSD, does not mean ATA doesn't support it. Jeh (talk) 00:45, 8 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Ok then my criticism viewpoints can be less directed to ATA for respect, then it is SSD that they aren't responsible for. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:06, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know what you're saying here but if you are saying that ATA does not support SSD, you are flatly wrong and you have provided exactly no evidence that can in any way be interpreted to support your claim. Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

The following content I will be deleting soon, it is totally off topic Do not separate my quotes from my paragraph, it is takes too much time to go back and reorganize it. --Ramu50 (talk) 21:01, 12 July 2008 (UTC)


 * PLEASE DO NOT DELETE MATERIAL FROM ARTICLE TALK PAGES, except to move it INTACT to an archive page under the talk page (not to your own). Once you write it, it's here. Please see WP:TALK for policies. (And I will respond as I please.) Jeh (talk) 22:12, 12 July 2008 (UTC)

"Technical criticisms" section
Upon comment by Ramu50 I agree, the "technical criticisms" section from the article counts as WP:OR as per WP:CRITICISM. I have moved it here until someone finds reliable sources that state these points as criticisms. Quoting the spec is not a source for a criticism as the conclusion that the spec is describing a problem is that of the WP editor. A blog is not even a reliable source and the blog entry cited does not support the contention that the ATA specification is at fault. It does criticize the default drive behavior of "write cache enabled" and the refusal of some OSs to allow this to be overridden, but neither is a problem of the ATA spec, nor specific to ATA drives. Jeh (talk) 03:51, 17 July 2008 (UTC)

Criticisms of current versions
The write cache of ATA disk drives is enabled by default to increase performance. If a power failure occurs before data in the write cache has been flushed to the disk, data will be lost. There is a "flush cache" command in ATA protocol, which will write the entire cache to medium before returning. However, the protocol does not allow a way to inquire a drive if a particular sector has been written or not.

Criticisms of obsolete versions
ATA1 (section 9.22), ATA2 , ATA3 specifies 'Set Features' command allows the user to enable it if the drive shall 'Enable write cache,' but does not specify the command to flush the cache.

ATA4 (section 8.10) specifies 'Flush Cache,' however should an error occur while executing the command, the disk will return the failing sector address and the sector is removed from cache. An alternative way to initiate flush cache does exist from ATA4 (section 8.37.9) and onwards: "When the subcommand disable write cache is issued, the device shall initiate the sequence to flush cache to non-volatile memory before command (see 8.10)."

Reason for removing SSD citation.
I am almost done with the reason why I removed the SSD citation. It is nothing like an essay length, it short and precise and I don't intend on making it connection with the current unfinish ATA/ATAPI criticism. These are 2 different things.

Note: I only look at this discussion, 1 time every week on average. 5~10 times to view and planning, only 6 hours max on writing, usually take 2~3 so it will take a while, sorry about that. --Ramu50 (talk) 23:47, 20 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Discussing one thing at a time is a very good principle.


 * Let me save you some time. I have restored SSDs to the lede with a slight rewording. Note that it now says that ATA is "used to connect" hard drives, SSDs, etc. Regardless of what you think the ATA standards support, and regardless of what you think about SSD reliability, it is absolutely beyond question that ATA is "used to connect" SSDs inside PCs. After all, several of the links you provided describe such products. i.e. the lede is describing reality. Jeh (talk) 23:59, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

You do understand that all of the interfaces use by SSD currently wasn't design for SSD at all do you. You stated several in previous archive CFA set support SSD, but none of the standards was design for SSD. So you cannot directly state it support SSD, there was no physical support, the citation you provided are all interface and BIOS related mechanism (similar to LBA), but again none of them was design for SSD so you cann't state that in the article.

However, previous archive mention was only an example, I do not expect to go back and provide citation for outdated stuff, just provide the citation for the current talk pages. Also I have decided to let you read what I've write, but since I didn't paste the info on Talk:Advanced Technology Attachment (section), you cannot use this information. You can only use it as an example, like what I did with the archive, but not with any other purpose.

My suggestion is you can put it support SSD (but you have to have a bracket or footnote that says something about PC Card, Magnetic Tape Drive interfaces if it was used. The footnote will require citation like so

Because AT Attachement support standard interface of CF, but it didn't support SSD, it suggest what you should do if you want to use it for other devices (but since it didn't say what devices) SSD & PC Card, Mangetic Tape drive...etc. can be connotated. Nowhere in the document did they use the word solid state (read the new archive I provided) the list that have ? in front of it, ignore it.

AT Attachment with Packet Interface (ATA/ATAPI) is a standard interface used to connect storage devices such as hard disks, solid-state drives/disk (1a b 23)

, and CD-ROM drives inside personal computers. The standard is maintained by X3/INCITS committee T13.

Superscript words are footnote
 * 1 = interface # 1
 * 2 = interface # 2
 * 3 = interface # 3


 * 1a
 * a = interface # 1, citation link

? New Archive --Ramu50 (talk) 20:44, 21 July 2008 (UTC)
 * Latest version of ? New Archive is 20:59, 21 July 2008 Ramu50


 * I'm not talking about "support" any more. The lede of the article says ATA/ATAPI is a standard interface (true, there are documents that describe it and that are widely accepted by industry) and that it is used to connect "storage devices such as hard disks, solid-state drives, and CD-ROM drives" (obviously true, there are many products in each category, and some of the links you provided confirm the existence of products called "solid-state drives" or "solid-state disks" with ATA interfaces). That is all the documentation needed to support the article lede. The issue of "support" is irrelevant to the statements of the article lede. Jeh (talk) 22:40, 21 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Also irrelevant is the issue of other interfaces such as SecureDigital, MediaCard, etc. - none of those are used by ATA SSDs so the ATA documents don't need to mention or describe them. ATA was "designed for" anything that could act like a hard drive at the ATA connector. ATA does not care if the storage happens to be magnetic disk, or flash memory, or SDRAM, or anything else, so does not need to mention let alone "support" any specific storage technology. Your claim that ATA does not "support" SSD because it doesn't describe them is equivalent to claiming that ATA doesn't really "support" hard drives with perpendicular recording, since it doesn't mention them and those were developed after ATA came out. But that doesn't matter, because ATA doesn't concern itself with the means of data storage. If a device follows the ATA signaling and command protocol at the ATA connector, as described in the ATA documents, it's a "device" as far as ATA is concerned. Jeh (talk) 23:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)