Maxtor 300 manual Breaking the 137 Gigabyte Storage Barrier, History

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Appendix A BREAKING THE 137 GIGABYTE STORAGE BARRIER

This appendix provides information about the 137GB storage barrier. It discusses the history, cause and the solution to overcome this barrier.

A.1 Breaking the 137 Gigabyte Storage Barrier

Capacity barriers have been a fact of the personal computer world since its beginnings in the early 1980’s. At least 10 different capacity barriers have occurred in the storage industry over the last 15 years. The most notable barriers seen previously have been at 528 megabytes and then at 8.4 gigabytes.

The ANSI NCITS T13 Technical Committee (also known as the ANSI ATA committee) has broken this barrier by incorporating a proposal from Maxtor into the ATA/ATAPI-6 draft standard that defines a method for 48-bit addressing on a single drive, giving more than 144 petabytes (144,000 gigabytes) of storage.

In addition, the proposal from Maxtor that was incorporated into ATA/ ATAPI-6 defines a method for extending the maximum amount of data that can be transferred per command for ATA devices from 256 sectors (about 131 kilobytes) to 65,536 sectors (about 33 megabytes). This new method is particularly useful for applications that use extremely large files, such as those for A/V or multimedia.

The following sections will describe issues surrounding the 137-gigabyte barrier and the solution for breaking it.

A.1.1 History

Many of the “barriers” in the past resulted from BIOS and operating system issues caused by failure to anticipate the remarkable increases in device storage capacity by the people who designed hard disk structures, access routines, and operating systems many years ago. They thought, “Who will ever have xxx much storage?” In some cases, the barriers were caused by hardware or software bugs not found until hard disks had grown in size beyond a certain point where the bugs would occur.

Past barriers often frustrated people trying to add a new hard disk to an older system when they discovered that not all of the designed capacity

Quickview 300 80/100/120/160/200/250/300GB PATA

A-1

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Contents MaxtorQuickview 80/100/120/160/200/250/300GB Pata Patents Publication Number Part Number Before You Begin McCarthy Blvd Milpitas, California Tel Fax Installation Chapter IntroductionChapter General DescriptionProduct Specifications ATA BUS Interface and ATA CommandsService and Support Appendix a Breaking the 137 Gigabyte Storage BarrierList of Figures List of Tables Maxtor Corporation AudienceProducts SupportManual Organization Terminology and ConventionsMSB References KEY Features Product OverviewGeneral Description Regulatory Compliance Standards Product EMI/EMS QualificationsInstallation Space RequirementsUnpacking Instructions 2Quickview 300 20-Pack Shipping Container Pata Interface Connector Hardware Options1AT Jumper Options Cable Select CS JumperMaster Jumper Configuration Drive Select DS JumperPower On Standby Cylinder Limitation Jumper CLJ4AT Connector and Jumper Location Combination Connector J1 2.1 40-Pin Pata Bus ConnectorPata BUS Adapter Adapter Board5J1 DC Power and Pata Bus Combination Connector DC Power J1, Section a Pata Bus Interface Connector J1, Section CExternal Drive Activity LED Mounting Orientation Installation Adapter Board Installation ClearanceVentilation For Systems With a Motherboard Pata AdapterConnecting the Adapter Board and the Drive 8Drive Power Supply and Pata Bus Interface CablesTechniques in Drive Configuration Operating system limitationsDrive Configuration Models and CapacitiesPerformance Specifications Physical Dimensions Parameter ValuePower Requirements for 80/100/120/160/200GB Typical Power Requirements for 250GB/300GB TypicalVoltage Tolerance Power Mode Definitions EPA Energy Star ComplianceEnvironmental Limits Acoustic Noise11Baseplate Tempurature Measurement Location Shock and Vibration Parameter Operating NON-OPERATINGReliability Specifications Annualized Return RateStart/Stop Cycles Data ReliabilitySafety Regulatory Compliance Canadian Emissions StatementSignal Cable and Connector IntroductionMechanical Interface Electrical InterfaceCommand Interface General Feature SetSupported Commands Command Feature Register Code ValuesFlush Cache SET Multiple Mode Write Sectors 30hContent Description Word10-19 Serial number 20 Ascii characters 20-21 Retired Content Description Minimum PIO transfer cycle time without flow control Minor version number See Address Offset Reserved Area Boot, Incits TR272001 = release interrupt enabled Supported Content Description Reserved 255 Integrity word 15-8 Checksum Signature Service and Support Product Support/Technical Assistance/Customer ServiceBreaking the 137 Gigabyte Storage Barrier HistoryDOS Solving the 137 Gigabyte Capacity Barrier How is the Extension Implemented?What Do the Drives Need to Meet the Spec? What is the Next Barrier? What Else is Involved?Appendix a Appendix B Big Numbers Appendix CGlossary Glossary FCI Acronym for flux changes per inch. See also BPI Initialize See low level formatting Millisecond ms One thousandth of a second .001 sec Glossary Quickview 300 80/100/120/160/200/250/300GB Pata G-7 Glossary Index