From owner-freebsd-stable@FreeBSD.ORG Tue Oct 14 18:25:58 2003 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 73CEF16A4B3 for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:25:58 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp.covadmail.net (mx05.covadmail.net [63.65.120.65]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 4A6DA43FE5 for ; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:25:57 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from strick@covad.net) Received: (covad.net 21270 invoked from network); 15 Oct 2003 01:25:52 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO ice.nodomain) (68.165.96.78) by sun-qmail16 with SMTP; 15 Oct 2003 01:25:51 -0000 Received: from ice.nodomain (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by ice.nodomain (8.12.8p1/8.12.8) with ESMTP id h9F1Q10S063619; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:26:02 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dan@ice.nodomain) Received: (from dan@localhost) by ice.nodomain (8.12.8p1/8.12.8/Submit) id h9F1Q1BK063618; Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:26:01 -0700 (PDT) Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2003 18:26:01 -0700 (PDT) From: Dan Strick Message-Id: <200310150126.h9F1Q1BK063618@ice.nodomain> To: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org cc: dan@ice.nodomain Subject: Re: ATA failure with 4.6.2 & 250GB drive? X-BeenThere: freebsd-stable@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Production branch of FreeBSD source code List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 15 Oct 2003 01:25:58 -0000 > FWIW, I have had _major_ problems (ie drive failure) when trying to use > an 80 wire cable on a UDMA33 board with an ATA66 drive - I would recommend > never using 80 wire cables on controllers that don't support UDMA66 or > better. The reverse, using 80 wire cables on UDMA66 (or better) controllers > with ATA33 drives is ok, however, and I've done that successfully. The only difference between 40 and 80 wire ATA cables are the extra 40 wires which are all connected to ground and pin 34 in the host connector which is not connected to the conductor in an 80 wire cable. The ANSI ATA/ATAPI-5 standard says that "80-conductor cable assemblies may be used in place of 40-conductor cable assemblies to improve signal quality ..." (section 4.2.2.1). Unless someone can suggest a specific mechanism for the drive failures, I would expect that your correlation between drive failures and using 80 conductor cables with UDMA33 controllers was just coincidence. Dan Strick strick@covad.net