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Date:      Wed, 31 Aug 2011 20:23:00 -0700
From:      Kevin Oberman <kob6558@gmail.com>
To:        perryh@pluto.rain.com
Cc:        dmagda@ee.ryerson.ca, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org, dart@es.net, freebsd@jdc.parodius.com
Subject:   Re: Unable to shutdown
Message-ID:  <CAN6yY1szj4t1_Ho--6VnhXe9ewjthTTin7auvJAgtem2o5_0aQ@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <4e5f49fa.2qH1H6gV7TIdZYiD%perryh@pluto.rain.com>
References:  <CAN6yY1s3x1ojxh-Dx9Ht=L8M4frohLXcMLNgz%2BzgtBCDodBdsg@mail.gmail.com> <uh78vqd9u8e.fsf@P142.sics.se> <4E5BF15F.9070601@es.net> <CAN6yY1u6ZshVZT2DwaQ2Et7Y1JvNA8q%2BFj5os4SmK4=7=Z77vg@mail.gmail.com> <f0ffdf9eccf14f42ee24f0982bb0fc4b.squirrel@webmail.ee.ryerson.ca> <20110830214832.GA87354@icarus.home.lan> <CAN6yY1upYKW9e3mmED11pTXk%2BVO1KduPy-boWTr7m9S42jUKWw@mail.gmail.com> <20110830234323.GA88936@icarus.home.lan> <CAN6yY1v%2ByqZTkX=XjAoLJWNuf%2Bz6OwR-s2sfdGuGk_RXwBK_VA@mail.gmail.com> <20110831071207.GA95960@icarus.home.lan> <4e5f49fa.2qH1H6gV7TIdZYiD%perryh@pluto.rain.com>

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On Thu, Sep 1, 2011 at 2:01 AM,  <perryh@pluto.rain.com> wrote:
> Jeremy Chadwick <freebsd@jdc.parodius.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 11:04:43PM -0700, Kevin Oberman wrote:
>> > ... the standrad does not specify EXACTLY what triggers a
>> > transition from standby to ready (PM2 to PM0). Only that it is
>> > something that requires media access. A write does not
>> > necessarily require media access if you define "media" as the
>> > disk platter.
>>
>> You're correct -- "media access" could mean, literally, "accessing
>> the platter" OR it could mean "LBA read/write I/O". =A0Then comes
>> into question whether or not the drive returning something from
>> its on-board cache would count as "media access" or not.
>>
>> T13 should probably clarify on this point, and this is one I do
>> not have an answer for myself. =A0I strongly believe "media access"
>> means "LBA read/write I/O" and regardless if it's data that's in
>> the on-board cache on the disk or not. =A0I wonder if this behaviour
>> varies per drive model.
>
> Given a standard which is, shall we say, "open to interpretation",
> I think the liklihood approaches 100% that it has been interpreted
> differently by different manufacturers -- or even by different
> firmware authors within a single manufacturer. =A0I would be amazed
> if the behaviour did _not_ vary among drive models.

And, if you tell your firmware writers that they should look for any
technique that
reduces power consumption, I don't doubt that keeping the disk in
standby until there
was a reason to move data from write cache to disk would look good. I would=
 hope
that they would not make a cache flush lie, but that used to be common
on old ATA
drives.
--=20
R. Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer - Retired
E-mail: kob6558@gmail.com



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