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FreeBSD Work

I have patches to some FreeBSD sources: Some other resources that you might find usefull:

Historical:

ATA Info

I have been reseaching doing a RAID system using ATA disks. Due to the number of disks I want to not stress the power supply by having six disks each draw 2 amps on the 12V line on spin up. The 300 watt power supply I am using will only supply 12 amps on the 12V line. That leaves no extra power for the mobo or anything else.

The ATA specification allows the HDD to power-on in Standby mode. This can be enabled either with a command or by a jumper. I have modified FreeBSD's ata driver to spin up the drives as none of the BIOS's that I've tried has followed the spec in knowing when to spin up the drives.

So far the following manufacturers do not follow the ATA specification:

If you are interested in my patches, I can provide you with them. I would recommend you bug your manufacturer to properly follow the ATA specification.

For more info, mail John-Mark Gurney <jmg@funkthat.com>

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