[CentOS] using various IDE or SCSI hard drive interfaces with CentOS Linux questions

[Bryan J. Smith]

Robert Hanson <roberth at abbacomm.net> wrote:
> my last hardware cycle was between the 1.2.13 and 2.0.X
> linux kernel stages believe it or not... and back then...

I started with 0.96 and Yggdrasil.

> well, i always hand rolled a kernel optimized to the bare
> bones servers i would take and hand build.

I pretty much switched to modules/initrd kernels with kernel
2.2+ as well.

> Bryan, i noticed and noted the SATA /dev/sda etc type
> device assignment issues.
> ummmmm will SATA always have SCSI type device assignment or
> has/will a new assignment be created?

It's not SATA per se, but the maintainers.  E.g., nVidia and
volunteers maintain the GPL nv_sata driver.

At this time, libata support is still forthcoming, so the ATA
codebase lacks most drivers.  There are only a few.

> i imagine that it would go so an ATA type device assignment
> eventually wouldnt it?

Yes.  The best "status page" I know of is here:  
  http://linux.yyz.us/sata/sata-status.html  

You'll note some say "not suited for libata" meaning they are
not ATA-like.  E.g., 3Ware's Escalade 8000/9000 series may
use SATA devices, but the kernel only talks to its on-board
ASIC intelligence, not the SATA channels.

But others, like the nVidia SATA in the nForce, have beta
libata support.  I suspect they will become part of the ATA
codebase and you will use "hd" instead of "sd" (as currently
with "nv_sata") in the future.




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