[geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

[Jonathan C. Patschke]

On Wed, 5 Mar 2008, Lionel Peterson 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?

Wouldn't a more reasonable design be to wire all the SATA power
connectors so as to enable delayed spin-up and have the drives' firmware
written to spin the drive up in response to some sort of probe command?

-- 
Jonathan Patschke | "There is no such thing as a short of reserves...
Elgin, TX         |  one bank can have a problem...the Fed can print
USA               |  money, there is no shortage."
.                 |     --Jim Glassman, US Economist, JPMorgan Chase