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Linux Now Supports Ultra ATA/100
salty dog writes: "Linux now supports Ultra ATA/100 HDDs, initially funded by SuSE Linux. Get the driver from: [www.linux-ide.org]." As you either know or have probably guessed, ATA/100 is the successor to the ATA/66 hard drive interface standard. And as the linux-ide.org site puts it, "Again Linux Beats MicroSoft to Future Technology Standard!" 'Nuff said.
Amazing, yet more wasted bandwidth on desktop systems. So tell me again why we are getting faster IDE speeds rather than moving to something like SCSI or IEEE 1394 (Firewire)? IDE blows if you're concerned with speed, 66 and 100mhz are fine if you're running several devices simultaneously but IDE doesn't do that does it? No. We'd be fine with PIO 4 since even 7200rpm hard drives can barely max out that bandwidth. Keeping IDE alive longer is pissing me off, why can't we move onto some more efficient standards? The Serial STS is an option, as is Firewire. Internal FW drives would be awesome, no more jumpers or SCSI IDs and alot less wiring inside my box. It'd be a nice thing to have removeable drives that could be both internal and external, say if I want to take my Orb drive or CD-R over to my friend's box to do some data transfering. Linux needs plenty of work in the Firewire area (which by the way has supported devices out RIGHT NOW). Imagine if VA or LinuxCOmputers could ship FW enabled systems, they would make as much headway as Apple has with them. I bet many companies would even write up Linux drivers for their equipment since it is a viable platform that more people are migrating to.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
How does ATA/100 compare with SCSI in speed? Reliability? Price?
Reliability
These days, the HDA (Hard Disk Assembly) is usually the same for both SCSI and ATA (IDE) disk drives. They simply use a different PCB (Printed Circuit Board) for different bus interfaces. Thus, all other things being equal, reliability should be about the same.
Of course, all other things are not equal. Generally speaking, very-low-end systems will never see SCSI, and very-high-end systems will never touch ATA. Thus, some really cheap (i.e., unreliable) drives are only available in ATA versions, and some really expensive (i.e., more reliable) drives are only available in SCSI versions.
Price
Despite the fact that there is no practical difference in cost of materials, SCSI drives are almost always much more expensive then their ATA counter-parts. There are two reasons for this.
The first is volume. A lot more ATA drives get sold then SCSI. But the second reason is the more significant one: SCSI is still considered a "high end" technology. Such technologies command a premium price. Thus, manufactures charge more for SCSI drives, and people are willing to pay it.
Performance and Features
ATA does not support device disconnection. This means only one device at a time can be using the bus. Since your average hard drive is going to sustain maybe 15 MByte/sec throughput, if you're lucky, even ATA/33 is overkill. ATA/66 and ATA/100 are completely useless to everyone but marketing types.
SCSI is the clear winner here:I've heard people claim that "most users don't need" the features and performance of SCSI. I disagree at two levels: One, I think they do. Even if it is just wondering why all their applications slow down when the CD-ROM drive is busy, regular users encounter the problems of ATA. And second, if regular users don't need that kind of performance, why are they bothering to upgrade ATA at all?
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Lets see... Oh yes, Linux now has ATA/100 support and Windows doesn't, woohoo! Lets all celebrate because we're faster then MS!
Wait a second... how long do you think for a Windows ATA/100 driver to be available really? I mean as soon as there is anything even remotely resembling demand for it, it will come into existance.
And just for the record, Windows has had USB support for well over two years now, whereas I try to plug a USB device into Linux, and...
Nothing!
So I guess MS has Linux beat by two years. Woohoo! Go MS!
Give me a break.
(ps - there is that whole ATA/100 being really pretty useless considering hard drive speed and the overall fact that IDE sucks compaired to SCSI anyway, but thats not really important to the whole "ra ra we support it first!" nonsense)
-- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
I'm amazed at how Linux has managed to "beat" Microsoft once again. Windows drivers for ATA/100 are already available. Several hardware sites have demonstrated these drives running and benchmarking accordingly.
In fact, what amazing new hardware technologies has Linux supported before Microsoft? It's more like the other way around. Microsoft is first to recieve support for new video cards, scsi cards, network cards, etc...etc...
Please don't spout more Anti-MS garbage, we get enough of this propoganda as it is. Correct the subject of this newsbit if you have journalistic integrity.
Yes, they do, but it's not ATA/100 . . . at least, not according to IBM:
Interface transfer rate (max MB/sec) 66.6+ 66.6+
Actually, it is. The ATA/100 interface wasn't officially introduced until monday. HD and chip manufacturers who had their ATA/100 products finished had to wait until Quantum gave them official permission. By calling the interface ATA/66+, IBM was able to get around this restriction. Technically, ther is no difference between ATA/66+ and ATA/100, so I expect IBM to change the name soon (after all, 100 sounds faster than 66, even with a plus sign...:-)
Check out this article on Heise Online for more information. It is in German, so you may want to use Babelfish.
Cthulhu fhtagn!
Well, windows 9x might have, NT is a different story. To install NT 4 (and windows 2000) on a ATA/66 drive. Well, guess what? HAL didn't (and doesn't) support ATA/66. I had to re-arange the entire IDE setup of the computer. Sure, after I had NT installed, I didn't have a problem, I could install the driver, then move the drive over....
Sigh, W2K supports ATA-66 right out of the box, never had a problem and I've already done a number of installs. As for NT you have to install the ATA-66 driver like a SCSI driver by pressing F6 at the beginning of the installation. It's all in the docs.
Similar to the adoption of ATA/66, ATA/100 support will first come to market with add-in PCI cards before being integrated into motherboard chipsets.
So the real issue isn't if Linux supports it, it's when/if the motherboard manufactures get on the ball and start making ATA/100 interfaces.
Now on another point, I found this while looking at the ATA/100 anounce at www.linux-ide.org:
Bridging the Gap to Serial ATA The Ultra ATA/100 interface provides a critical technology bridge between ATA/66 and the future availability of the Serial ATA interface, which is currently under development. Serial ATA has industry-wide support and is expected to be widely deployed in new computer systems by 2005. In the meantime, Ultra ATA/100 will provide mature technologies to meet the heightened throughput demands that large, complex files are placing on desktop systems. Once these higher performance systems and drives become available, the Ultra ATA/100 interface will require less time to boot a computer system and open applications.
My real question is "IS THERE A NEED FOR THIS?" I still have all standard ATA/33 drives, and none of my motherboards (all bought in the last year) have ATA/66 support. When serial ATA comes out, then I can see the need. I know the need is there is servers, but is there a real need on the desktop? Linux and windows run fast on my K6-III 400 with a 5400 RPM ATA/33.
Sure I'd like ATA/100, but the focus should be on getting wide acceptance for the current standard (ATA/66) before moving to the next one (ATA/100). If we just "keep moving forward" and always upgrading the interface, but then users are left in a constant upgrade cycle, with no clear standards. (The 3D card market, anyone?)
All in all, this is a great move for linux. Glad to see good 'ol Tux can beat M$ to the punch. I just don't want to see customers get screwed by constant upgrade cycles.
Driven by 100% sarcasm - fueled by the need to be heard.