Re: [RFR] a new SCSI driver

john@grabjohn.com
Sun, 25 May 2003 11:32:09 +0100


> > Thinking ahead, by the 2.8 timescale, PATA could well be legacy hardware
> > which could be supported only by an 'old' IDE driver, much like we already
> > have at the moment - I.E. we could remove the current 'old' IDE driver
> > sometime during the 2.7 timescale, and support SATA only via the SCSI layer.
> >
> > This would save having any more than the minimum SATA code going in to the
> > existing IDE driver, and consolidate work in the future.

> PATA is in _way_ too many current boxes, those computers will continue to
> run for a very long time from now.

That would be the reason for the old IDE driver. PATA will still be in use, but
it won't be mainstream.

> In 10 years what is technologically obselete will still be very capable.

Of course it will - the same is true today. That doesn't mean it will be in
mainstream use. The systems that do use PATA will benefit from having it
supported in a smaller footprint driver. It will be analogous to using the
current 'old' IDE driver on a 4 MB 386 today.

> > The bloat of the SCSI layer in embedded machines might be a concern, but
> > then again, maybe it won't - how many embedded machines are going to be
> > using SATA, anyway? Once we move away from spinning disks towards solid
> > state storage, (which is going to happen first in the embedded market),
> > will we want to use *ATA or SCSI at all?

> You're confusing media and transport.

No, I'm not.

20-40 GB of RAM will be very cheap in a few years time. A lot of the devices
using disks today will be using direct memory mapped RAM as their main storage
in the near future. You don't need *ATA for that...

John.
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