Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S932152AbVIGOsX (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Sep 2005 10:48:23 -0400 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S932148AbVIGOsX (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Sep 2005 10:48:23 -0400 Received: from prgy-npn1.prodigy.com ([207.115.54.37]:19468 "EHLO oddball.prodigy.com") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S932152AbVIGOsW (ORCPT ); Wed, 7 Sep 2005 10:48:22 -0400 Message-ID: <431EFE93.5050900@tmr.com> Date: Wed, 07 Sep 2005 10:52:03 -0400 From: Bill Davidsen User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.11) Gecko/20050729 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Jeff Garzik CC: Alan Cox , "ATARAID (eg, Promise Fasttrak, Highpoint 370) related discussions" , linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Subject: Re: IDE HPA References: <87941b4c05082913101e15ddda@mail.gmail.com> <87941b4c05083008523cddbb2a@mail.gmail.com> <1125419927.8276.32.camel@localhost.localdomain> <87941b4c050830095111bf484e@mail.gmail.com> <62b0912f0509020027212e6c42@mail.gmail.com> <1125666332.30867.10.camel@localhost.localdomain> <62b0912f05090206331d04afd3@mail.gmail.com> <62b0912f05090209242ad72321@mail.gmail.com> <1125680712.30867.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> <62b0912f05090210441d3fa248@mail.gmail.com> <1125684567.31292.2.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1125687557.30867.26.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1125688483.31292.20.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1125692578.30867.33.camel@localhost.localdomain> <1125695649.31292.45.camel@localhost.localdomain> <431A3249.9040504@pobox.com> In-Reply-To: <431A3249.9040504@pobox.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org Content-Length: 1564 Lines: 35 Jeff Garzik wrote: > It seems to me that one should write an ATA-specific Device Mapper > driver, which layers on top of an ATA disk. The driver obtains the > starting location of HPA, then exports two block devices: one for the > primary data area, and one for the HPA. I've stayed out of this, but that sounds like a perfect solution to move the choice back to the user. However, installers still need to be aware of it at initial Linux install, and give the user some rational options: - ignore it - leave alone but visible - blow it away and use the whole drive It feels as if that's where the future disposition needs to be made. I do like treating the HPA as a separate drive though. > > For situations where we want the start Linux philosophy -- Linux exports > 100% of the hardware capability -- no DM layer needs to be used. For > situations where its better to treat the HPA as a separate and distinct > area, the DM driver would come in handy. > > This follows the same philosophy as fakeraid (BIOS RAID): we simply > export the entire disk, and Device Mapper (google for 'dmraid') handles > the vendor-proprietary RAID metadata. -- -bill davidsen (davidsen@tmr.com) "The secret to procrastination is to put things off until the last possible moment - but no longer" -me - To unsubscribe from this list: send the line "unsubscribe linux-kernel" in the body of a message to majordomo@vger.kernel.org More majordomo info at http://vger.kernel.org/majordomo-info.html Please read the FAQ at http://www.tux.org/lkml/