[geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com>
>Date: 2008/03/05 Wed PM 04:27:06 CST
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

>Alois Hammer wrote:
>> IIRC, quality RAID controllers (3Ware, for instance) can perform this
>> feat.  Ask a salescritter to be sure.  If you wanted a cheap and easy
>> way, like setting a jumper?  Sorry.
>
>Ok.  I checked, and my controller, the Highpoint RocketRAID 2320, 
>supports staggered spin, but I don't understand how it stops the drives 
>from spinning up if it hasn't yet booted its own firmware.

Couldn't this be a signal that is sent down the wire (i.e. a pin held high until the cards firmware takes over?), and the drives are designed to await that lowered line signal (which would not otherwise exist)? OR, what happens when a drive is powered up without any connection? Does it start up by default, or does it await a signal from the controller?

Lionel