Advanced HDD Issues

Advanced HDD Issues Linkfram

Hard Disk Drive Reference Section @ Storagereview.com (reprinted from the PC Guide link below)
Including:
A Brief History of the Hard Disk Drive
Construction and Operation of the Hard Disk Drive
Hard Disk Geometry and Low-Level Data Structures
Hard Disk Performance, Quality and Reliability
Hard Disk BIOS and Capacity Factors
Hard Disk Interfaces and Configuration
Hard Disk Logical Structures

Hard Disk Drives A the PC Guide (same as above)
PC Guide Topic Index

ATA-ATAPI.COM
How it Works Document series (HTML and Zip available)
Including:
Hale's ATA FAQ
Fact and Fiction
CHS Translation
Partition Tables
Masterboot Record
DOS Floppy Disk Boot Sector
OS2 Boot Sector

Computer Boot Sequence @ Mossywell.com
Including:
Hard Disk Geometry
How the Physical Disk is accessed
The Standards
How we used to access the disk: CHS, ECHS, Revised ECHS, Assisted LBA, LBA
How we now access the disk: LBA and Extended INT13h
Better than LBA and Extended INT13h: Direct Disk Access (DMA)
The BIOS
The Master Boot Record \ The Master Boot Record Code
Partition Boot Sector and Clusters \ Partition Boot Sector Code
FAT Locations \ The FAT in Detail
The Root Directory \ The Root and Other Directories in Detail
IO.SYS with MS-DOS
NTLDR with Win NT (W2K, XP)

NTFS vs FAT
The NTFS Filesystem Comprehensive Overview
Fat System Guide
NTFS Basics
Converting FAT32 to NTFS (you should really read this)
Default Cluster Sizes (chart)

Windows 2000 and the Boot @ Windows & .NET Magazine
Inside the Boot Process Part 1 (NTFS) & Part 2 @ Windows & .NET Magazine

Partition Strategies @ Radified.com
Fdisk Guide @ Radified.com

Bootdisks
Ultimate Boot CD A MUST HAVE
Bootdisk.com
ETPlanet
TCP/IP bootdisks +
Ultimatebootcd
Bootable cd image with: Hard Disk Diagnosis, Drive Fitness Test (IBM/Hitachi) 3.50, PowerMax (Maxtor/Quantum) 4.06, Data Lifeguard (Western Digital) 10.0, SeaTools Desktop (Seagate) 1.06.02, Diagnostic Tool (Fujitsu) 6.10, SHDIAG (Samsung) 1.25, Hard Disk Management, IBM/Hitachi Feature Tool 1.90, Ranish Partition Manager 2.43, AutoClave (HDD Wiper) 0.3, Partition Resizer 1.3.4, SavePart (Partition Saver) 2.70, XFDISK (Extended FDISK) 0.9.3beta, g4u (HDD Cloning) 1.12, HDClone (Free Edition) 1.0, TestDisk 4.4, Memory Diagnosis, Memtest86 3.0, Linux-based Rescue Disks, Offline NT Password & Registry Editor 030426, Tom's Boot Disk 2.0.103, Recovery Is Possible (RIP) 2.0, RIP Linux Rescue Disk, and AIDA16 (System information) 2.08, F-Prot Antivirus for DOS (Personal use only), Virus definition: 22 Aug 2003, Macro virus definitions have been disabled so that everything can fit onto a 2.88MB virtual floppy boot image. Includes read-only freeware version of NTFSDOS 3.14a, Active NTFS Reader for DOS, Thanx to styckx who originally posted this

Boot Managers
Gujin
Understanding MultiBooting and Booting Windows from an Extended Partition
Multibooting Principles
XOSL opensource freeware
Smart Boot Manager opensource freeware
GAG
System Commander $
OS-BS FreeBSD boot manager opensource freeware
Ranish Partition Manager freeware
GNU GRUB opensource freeware
LILO Linux Bootmanager opensource freeware
Solaris boot manager
Masterbooter shareware

Linux-NTFS Project

Microsoft Disk Reference
How Windows 2000 Assigns, Reserves, and Stores Drive Letters
Diskpart Utility
HOW TO: Change Drive Letter Assignments in Windows XP

Additional Reference
Serial ATA (SATA)
ATA EIDE
ATAPI-ATA- EIDE History
EIDE vs SCSI
SCSI FAQ
SCSI FAQ
Fibre Channel
List of Partition IDs
Windows 2000 MBR
Error codes for Ghost

Performances issues and Tradeoffs in Configuring for multiple devices
Independent Master Slave Timing

Dynamic Disks
Description of Disk Groups in Windows Disk Management
Dynamic vs. Basic Storage in Windows 2000
Basic and Dynamic Disks @ Windows & .net Magazine
HOW TO: Recover an Accidentally Deleted NTFS or FAT32 Dynamic Volume
Dynamic Disk Hardware Limitations (No firewire, USB, removable or laptop)
HOW TO: Set Up Fault-Tolerant Sets on Dynamic Disks in Windows 2000
Dynamic Disk Numbering and the DmDiag.exe Tool
HOW TO: Regenerate a Dynamic Mirrored Volume in Windows 2000
Restrictions on Extending or Spanning Simple Volumes on Dynamic Disks

Limits of Dynamic Disks in Windows 2000
LDMDump (Freeware utility) @ sysinternals
LDM Database @ Linux-NTFS project
LDM FAQ @ Linux-NTFS project

Recovery Reference
Recovering NTFS Boot Sector on NTFS Partitions

NTFS Advanced Studies
NTFS Volume Management and HKLM\System\DiskKey
NTFS Boot INI Options Reference
NTFS Defragmenting
Inside W2K NTFS Part 1
Inside W2K NTFS Part 2
Exploring NTFS On-Disk Structures
Inside Storage Management, Part 1
Inside storage Management Part 2 Basic vs Dynamic Disks
Inside Encrypting File System Part 1
Inside Encrypting File System Part 2
Inside Memory Management Paging Files


Additional NT Articles at Windows & .NET Magazine By Mark Russinovich Including: Crash Dump Analysis, Inside Win32 Services, Windows 2000 Kernal, Scalability Enhancements, Management Interface, Reliability Enhancements, and the Registry.
Additional NTFS Articals and Utilities atSysinternals

Other Filesystems
The Linux Filesystem Explained
Linux Filesystems Comparison
Ext2FS
Ext3
ReiserFS
JFS for Linux
The Unix UFS Filesystem
Space efficiency SFS,FFS,AFS,FAT16,FAT32


RAID
Definitive Guide to RAID @ Storagereview
RAID I: The Lesser Levels @ Lost Circuits (0, 1 mirroring, 1 duplexing, 1+0)
RAID II: A Matter of Parity @ Lost Circuits
RAID an In-Depth Guide @ SLCentral.com
The Skinny on RAID @ arstechnica
RAID: Your Guide @ PCMechanic
RAID Explained @ AnandTech (part of IDE RAID Comparison dated)


SATA
Serial ATA in the Microsoft Operating System Environment

including:
The Significance of Serial ATA
The Different Modes of Serial ATA Controllers
Serial ATA 1.0 Features and Details
Emulating Parallel ATA Mode
Native Serial ATA Mode
SATA II Features and Details
Serial ATA Hardware Register Interface
Naming Conventions for Serial ATA Products
Support for Serial ATA in Windows
Ataport
Serial ATA Emulating Parallel ATA Mode Controller Support in the Windows Family of Operating Systems
Native Serial ATA Mode Controller Support in Future Versions of Windows
Emulating Parallel ATA Mode Controller Program
Identifying Emulating Parallel ATA Mode and Native Serial ATA Mode Controllers
Multiple Controllers in a System
Booting from the Different Modes of Serial ATA
Serial ATA as an External Connection
Hot Plugging
Hard Disk Drive Capacity Limitations on Serial ATA
CD-ROM Opportunities

and

BIOS Settings for Native-Mode-Capable ATA Controllers


SSD
Solid State File-Caching for Performance and Scalability
Solid State Disks Buyers Guide
Solid State Disks Intro & FAQ
SSD more than just a big cache

reserved for linkfarm

USB Considerations
[QUOTE]Originally posted by lessthanjakejohn
The USB standard is in a state of flux, with vendors often using their
own interpretation of the words "full" and "high". At one point, "full
speed" referred to USB 1.1 operating in a USB 2 port at the 12Mb/s
maximum of USB 1.1. "High speed" referred to the standard maximum speed
of USB 2, 480Mb/s. The USB organization has a statement to the effect
that one should determine what is being stated by a vendor from the
vendor itself if there is any doubt about what is being advertized.
This is important since some vendors were using the term "USB 2
compliant" to mean USB 1.1 would work, while customers were interpreting
it as "USB 2".

The USB standards organization still recognizes that Full Speed and Low
Speed refer to USB (formerly known as USB 1.1) transfer rates, and
High-Speed refers to Hi-Speed USB (formerly known as USB 2) at its
maximum transfer rate.

http://www.usb.org/info/usb_nomenclature

The USB-IF's naming and packaging recommendations for low- or full-speed
USB products, as listed on this web site state that such products can
carry only the basic version of the USB logo, which simply states
"Certified USB." We state clearly that manufacturers should avoid using
terminology such as USB 2.0 Full Speed, Full Speed USB or USB 2.0. These
formal recommendations were published to the USB-IF membership and
posted on this web site in August 2002.
[end quote]

Originally posted by PassMark
As there was some discussion about USB speed (Highspeed/FullSpeed), I thought I would mention that there are a number of other factors that impact USB speed. While USB 1.1 vs USB 2.0 is the most important, as already pointed out, USB 2.0 supports FullSpeed (12 Mb/s) and USB 2.0 may only operate below this speed. So it is imporatnt to know whether your USB 2.0 port and device are capable of HighSpeed.

Other issues that impact USB speed include: the manufacturers host controller implementation, point of connectivity to the host controller (e.g. A connection via the PCI bus will insert a bottleneck to achieving High-speed rates. My testing of PCI connected ports show they typically have a much slower maximum speed of 100 - 130Mb/s compared to typically 250Mb/s to 330Mb/s when directly connected to the motherboard, cabling (you might be surprised how much re-transmission is occurring - slowing things down), the device driver used, implementation of the USB device and the implementation of the application software.

This information is based on reliability testing and benchmarking carried out on the recently released USB 2.0 loopback and benchmark plug from www.passmark.com/product/usb2loopback.htm

additional interesting thread
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread....hreadid=745447

USB (1.1?) Basic Technical Summary

I am dumb