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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:31:37 -0500
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From: "b. f." <bf1783@googlemail.com>
To: dougb@freebsd.org
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Cc: freebsd-current@freebsd.org
Subject: Re: AHCI/ATA_CAM for dummies?
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On 12/14/09, b. f. <bf1783@googlemail.com> wrote:
...
>>So far so good. :)  I am actually kind of curious as to why "device
>>ata" is needed, but it doesn't seem to be hurting anything.
>
> It is needed if you have AHCI hardware, and are operating in AHCI
> mode, but don't have ahci(4) in your kernel; or if you don't have AHCI
> hardware, or have AHCI hardware operating in legacy mode, and still
> want to use ATA devices.
>

I forgot to mention that ata(4) is also superfluous if you have
hardware that can use the  siis(4) driver, and that driver is in your
kernel.