Hard Drive Technologies

Chapter 9

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Overview
In this chapter, you will learn to
Explain how hard drives work
Identify and explain ATA hard drive interfaces

Identify and explain SCSI hard drive interfaces

Describe how to protect data with RAID

Explain how to install drives

Configure CMOS and install drivers
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Historical/Conceptual

How Hard Drives Work

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The Hard Drive

Hard drives are composed of individual disks or platters The platters are made up of aluminum and coated with a magnetic medium Two tiny read/write heads service each platter

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The Hard Drive

The closer the read/write heads are to the platter, the more densely the data can be packed on to the drive Hard drives use a tiny, heavily filtered aperture to equalize the air pressure between the exterior and interior of the hard drive Platters spin between 3500 and 10,000 rounds per minute (RPM)
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Data Encoding
Hard drives store data in tiny magnetic fields called fluxes The flux switches back and forth through a process called flux reversal

Hard drives read these flux reversals at a very high speed when accessing or writing data
Fluxes in one direction are read as 0 and the other direction as 1

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Data Encoding
Encoding methods used by hard drives are

Run length limited (RLL)

Data is stored using runs that are unique patterns of ones and zeroes Can have runs of about seven fluxes

Partial Response Maximum Likelihood (PRML)

Uses a powerful, intelligent circuitry to analyze each flux reversal Can have runs of about 16 to 20 fluxes Significantly increased capacity (up to 1 TB)

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Arm Movement in the Hard Drive The stepper motor technology and the voice coil technology are used for moving the actuator arm
Moves the arms in fixed increments or steps Only seen in floppies today

The voice coil technology uses a permanent magnet surrounding the coil on the actuator arm to move the arm
Automatically parks drive over non-data area when power removed

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Geometry
Geometry is used to determine the location of the data on the hard drive
CHS (cylinders, heads, sectors)

Used to be critical to know geometry

Had to enter into CMOS manually

Today, geometry stored on hard drive

BIOS can query hard drive for geometry data

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Heads
Heads
Number of read/write heads used by the drive to store data Two heads per platter (top and bottom) Most hard drives have an extra head or two for their own usage, so the number may not be even

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Cylinders
Cylinders

Group of tracks of the same diameter going completely through the drive

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Sectors per Track

Sectors per track
Number of slices in the hard drive 512 bytes per sector

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Obsolete Geometry
Might see in older systems

Write precompensation cylinder

The specific cylinder from where the drive would start writing data farther apart
Internal sectors physically smaller External sectors physically larger This identified cylinder where spacing changed

Landing zone
Unused cylinder as parking place for heads
Referred to as Lzone, LZ, Park Needed for older drives using stepper motors
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IT Technician
CompTIA A+ Essentials

ATAThe King

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Hard Drive Interfaces

ATA interfaces dominate todays market
Many changes throughout years Parallel ATA (PATA) historically prominent Serial ATA (SATA) since 2003

Small Computer System Interface (SCSI)

Pronounced Scuzzy Used in many high-end systems

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ATA Overview
Cable 40-pin 40-pin 40-pin 40-pin Keywords PIO and DMA EIDE ATAPI SMART Ultra BIOS Upgrade ATA/33 ATA/66 Big Drive ATA/133 SATA Speed 3.3 MBps to 8.3 MBps 11.1 MBps to 16.6 MBps Max size 504 MB 8.4 GB

ATA-1 ATA-2 ATA-3 ATA-4 INT13 ATA-5 ATA-6 ATA-7

11.1 MBps to 16.6 MBps 8.4 GB 16.7 MBps to 33.3 MBps 8.4 GB 137 GB 44.4 MBps to 6.6 MBps 100 MBps 133 MBps to 300 MBps 137 GB 144 PB 144 PB

40-pin 80-wires 40-pin 80-wires 40-pin 80-wires 7-pin

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ATA-1
Programmable I/O (PIO)traditional data transfer
3.3 MBps to 8.3 MBps

DMAdirect memory access

2.1 MBps to 8.3 MBps

Allowed two drives (one master, one slave)

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ATA-2
Commonly called EIDE (though a misnomer) Added second controller to allow for four drives instead of only two Increased size to 8.2 GB Added ATAPI
Could now use CD drives

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ATA-3
Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology
S.M.A.R.T.

No real change in other stats

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ATA-4
Introduced Ultra DMA Modes
Ultra DMA Mode 0: 16.7 MBps Ultra DMA Mode 1: 25 MBps Ultra DMA Mode 2: 33 MBps

Ultra DMA Mode 2 also called ATA/33

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INT13 Extensions
ATA-1 standard actually written for hard drives up to 137 GB
BIOS limited it to 504 MB due to cylinder, head, and sector maximums ATA-2 implemented LBA to fool the BIOS, allowing drives to be as big as 8.4 GB

INT13 Extensions extended BIOS commands

Allowed drives as large as 137 GB

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ATA-5
Introduced newer Ultra DMA Modes
Ultra DMA Mode 3: 44.4 MBps Ultra DMA Mode 4: 66.6 MBps

Ultra DMA Mode 4 also called ATA/66 Used 40-pin cable, but had 80 wires
Blue connectorto controller Gray connectorslave drive Black connectormaster drive
ATA/66 cable

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ATA-6
Big Drives introduced Replaced INT13 & 24-bit LBA to 48-bit LBA Increased maximum size to 144 PB
144,000,000 GB

Introduced Ultra DMA 5

Ultra DMA Mode 5: 100 MBps ATA/100 Used same 40-pin, 80-wire cables as ATA-5

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ATA-7
Introduced Ultra DMA 6
Ultra DMA Mode 6: 133 MBps ATA/133 Used same 40-pin, 80-wire cables as ATA-5 Didnt really take off due to SATAs popularity

Introduced Serial ATA (SATA)

Increased throughput to 150 MBps to 300 MBps

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IT Technician

CompTIA A+ Technician

ATA-7

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Serial ATA
Serial ATA (SATA) creates a point-to-point connection between the device and the controller Hot-swappable Can have as many as eight SATA devices Thinner cables resulting in better airflow and cable control in the PC

Maximum cable length of 39.4 inches compared to 18 inches for PATA cables

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Serial ATA
More on SATA
PATA device my be connected to SATA using a SATA bridge Can have as many as eight SATA devices
Add more SATA functionality via a PCI card

eSATA
External SATA

eSATA Port

Extends SATA bus to external devices

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SCSI Small Computer System Interface

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SCSI
Pronounced Scuzzy

Been around since 70s

Devices can be internal or external Historically the choice for RAID
Faster than PATA Could have more than four drives

SATA replacing SCSI in many applications

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SCSI Chains
A SCSI chain is a series of SCSI devices working together through a host adapter The host adapter is a device that attaches the SCSI chain to the PC All SCSI devices are divided into internal and external groups The maximum number of devices, including the host adapter, is 16
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Internal Devices
Internal SCSI devices are installed inside the PC and connect to the host adapter through the internal connector Internal devices use a 68-pin ribbon cable

Cables can be connected to multiple devices

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External Devices
External SCSI devices are connected to host adapter to external connection of host adapter External devices have two connections in the back, to allow for daisy-chaining

A standard SCSI chain can connect 15 devices, including the host adapter

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SCSI IDs
Each SCSI device must have a unique SCSI ID The values of ID numbers range from 0 to 15 No two devices connected to a single host adapter can share the same ID number No order for the use of SCSI IDs, and any SCSI device can have any SCSI ID
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SCSI IDs
The SCSI ID for a particular device can be set by configuring jumpers, switches, or even dials Use your hexadecimal knowledge to set the device ID
Device 1 = Device 7 = Device 15 = 0001 0111 1111 Off, Off, Off, On Off, On, On, On On, On, On, On

Host adapters often set to 7 or 15 but can be changed

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Termination
Terminators are used to prevent a signal reflection that can corrupt the signal Pull-down resistors are usually used as terminators

Only the ends of the SCSI chains need to be terminated

Most manufacturers build SCSI devices that self-terminate

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Protecting Data with RAID

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Protecting Data
The most important part of a PC is the data it holds
Companies have gone out of business because of losing data on hard drives

Hard drives will eventually develop faults Fault tolerance allows systems to operate even when a component fails
Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) is one such technology

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RAID Level 0
Disk striping
Writes data across multiple drives at once Requires at least two hard drives Provides increased read and writes

Not fault tolerant

If any drive fails, the data is lost

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RAID Level 1
Disk mirroring/duplexing is the process of writing the same data to two drives at the same time
Requires two drives Produces an exact mirror of the primary drive Mirroring uses the same controller Duplexing uses separate controllers

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RAID Levels 2 to 4
RAID 2
Disk striping with multiple parity drives Not used

RAID 3 and 4
Disk striping with dedicated parity Dedicated data drives and dedicated parity drives Quickly replaced by RAID 5

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RAID Level 5
Disk striping with distributed parity
Distributes data and parity evenly across the drives Requires at least three drives Most common RAID implementation

Software-based RAID 5

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RAID 5 (Stripe with Parity)

Decimal 0 1 2 3 4 22 4 0 0 0 0 1 21 2 0 0 1 1 0 20 1 0 1 0 1 0 Decimal 21 20 Odd Parity 1 0 0 1

0 1 2 3

2 0 0 1 1

1 0 1 0 1

0 0

0 1

1 0

1
1 Data

0
1 Data

0
1 Parity

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RAID Level 6
Super disk striping with distributed parity
RAID 5 with asynchronous and cached data capability

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Implementing RAID
SCSI has been the primary choice in the past
Faster than PATA PATA allowed only four drives

SATA today viewed as comparable choice

Speeds comparable to SCSI Dedicated SATA controllers can support up to 15 drives

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Hardware vs. Software

Hardware RAID
Dedicated controller Operating system views it as single volume

Software RAID
Operating system recognizes all individual disks Combines them together as single volume

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Personal RAID
ATA RAID controller chips have gone down in price Some motherboards are now shipping with RAID built-in The future is RAID
RAID has been around for 20 years but is now less expensive and moving into desktop systems

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Connecting Drives

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Connecting Your Drive

Choosing your drive
PATA, SATA, or SCSI Check BIOS and motherboard for support

Jumpers and cabling on PATA

Master Slave Cable select

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Jumpers and Cabling

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Connecting SCSI Drives

First need compatible controller
Different types of SCSI

Connect data cable

Reversing this cable can damage drive, data, or both

Connect power
Pin 1 goes to Pin 1

Configure SCSI IDs on drives and controller

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BIOS Support: Configuring CMOS and Installing Drivers

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Configuring CMOS
Enable Controller Turn on Auto detection

PATA - IDE Channels 1 and 2

SATA - IDE Channels 3 to 6 (note no slaves)

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Boot Order
Identifies where computer will try to load an operating system
Multiple devices configured

First one with an OS will boot

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Device Drivers
ATAPI devices show up in CMOS, but true BIOS support comes from a driver at boot-up Serial ATA requires loading drivers for an external SATA controller and configuring the controller Flash ROM settings for the specific drive

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