Re: Scheduled Transfer Protocol on Linux

[Larry McVoy]

: I worked on disk drive microelectronics for a few years. Your understanding
: of what is in those chips is grossly oversimplified. A general purpose
: processor simply could not be utilized in this environment. Behind the disk
: controller is a highly advanced dsp that is functionally merged with
: pipelined ecc. The latest designs pipeline the ecc right throught the dsp
: and into the disk controller. This is then merged with a digital control loop
: for the motor driving the arm. 

While it is entirely possible that you are correct, I think in this case 
you are mistaken.  I've been in contact with <insert unnamed disk company>
and they are working on this sort of technology as we speak.  My personal 
belief is that _ALL_ of the drive companies are looking hard at things which
add value to the disk drives, because the margins are very low and they are
looking for something that could drive 'em back up.  A disk drive which is
also a Linux machine is pretty interesting.  It has people like Cobalt
squarely in the cross hairs.  Instead of a $1500 box which takes up 2U,
you can have 8 $300 boxes in the same space, with 8x the performance.

: Beyond that, they have highly integrated 4 year development schedules. This
: is necessary because the entire system is functionally tuned to the media
: characteristics. And now your talking advanced material and manufacturing
: research, involving atomic scale quantum effects... You just can't walk in
: to those groups and announce a great idea[1]... Ideas flow down from the
: Advanced R&D labs. So whatever innovation you see coming out of the disk
: industry has been in the pipeline for years...

I think we are talking to different groups of people.

: Of course, if you want to talk with some R&D managers, I could get you
: connected with the right people at Seagate, Maxtor, and Quantum...

I'll take you up on that one.  Please forward a list of contacts.

--lm