LibAtaForAtaDisks

Revision 3 as of 2006-05-01 20:43:44

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DRAFT - BRAINDUMP - NOT COMPLETE - WORK IN PROGRESS - I am still thinking about pro/con situations.

Summary

There is work on the go by Alan Cox in the kernel to make libata handle PATA disks as well as SATA disks. This would allow for a simpler install image due to all disks becoming sdXY. Alan has a web-place, http://zeniv.linux.org.uk/~alan/IDE/ , where there is a file, STATUS.txt, detailing progress. I will have a look through the files there and then update this page again.

Rationale

One interface for all things ATA, allow drivers/ide to go away. One namespace for disks whether SCSI or ATA.

Use cases

Scope

Design

Implementation

ScottJamesRemnant notes:

  • Requires migrating all references to disks; including boot-loader, /etc/fstab and just about anywhere else they might show up.
  • I'd recommend migrating them to UUID-based paths, rather than /dev/sd*; e.g. UUID=xxx or /dev/disk/by-uuid/xxx for each case.
  • This can be done *before* upgrading (/dev/hd* have uuids too) so that after reboot, everything still works even though they're now on the scsi subsystem
  • And this gives them free removable/swappable disk support (take your root disk out, put it in usb cradle, boot another machine with it and it just works)

Code

Data preservation and migration

Outstanding issues

BoF agenda and discussion

CategorySpec