Western Digital caviar blue xl500s Technical Reference Manual page 11

XL500S Description and Features
Hot Plug Support — SATA supports hot plugging (also known as "hot swapping"), the
ability to swap out a failed hard drive without having to power down the system or reboot.
This capability contributes to both data availability and serviceability without any
associated downtime, making it a critical feature for extending SATA into enterprise
applications.
Active LED Status — The drive supports external LED requirements. It provides an
activity LED output which is ON during command execution and OFF otherwise.
Fluid Dynamic Bearings (FDB) — Bearing design that incorporates a layer of high-
viscosity lubricant instead of ball bearings in the hard drive spindle motor. As an
alternative to conventional ball bearing technology, FDB designs provide increased non-
operational shock resistance, speed control, and improved acoustics.
Staggered Spin-Up — Next generation SATA 3.0 Gb/s feature that allows the system
to control whether the drive will spin up immediately or wait until the interface is fully
ready.
CacheFlow™ —WD's unique, multi-generation caching algorithm evaluates the way data
is read from and written to the drive and adapts "on-the-fly" to the optimum read and write
caching methods. CacheFlow minimizes disk seek operations and overheads due to
rotational latency. CacheFlow supports sequential and random write cache. With write
cache and other CacheFlow features, the user can cache both read and write data. The
cache can hold multiple writes and collectively write them to the hard disk.
48-bit Logical Block Addressing (LBA) — WD SATA drives support both 48-bit and
28-bit LBA and CHS-based addressing. LBA is included in advanced BIOS and
operating system device drivers and ensures high capacity disk integration.
Power Management — The drive supports the ATA and SATA power management
command set, allowing the host to reduce the power consumption of the drive by issuing
a variety of power management commands.
Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (S.M.A.R.T.) — S.M.A.R.T.
enables a drive's internal status to be monitored through diagnostic commands at the
host level and during offline activities. S.M.A.R.T. devices employ data analysis algorithms
that are used to predict the likelihood of some near-term degradation or fault conditions.
When used with a S.M.A.R.T. application, the drive can alert the host system of a negative
reliability status condition. The host system can then warn the user of the impending risk
of data loss and recommend an appropriate action.
ATA Security — The drive supports the ATA Security Mode Feature set. The ATA
Security Mode feature set allows the user to create a device lock password that prevents
unauthorized hard disk access even if the drive is removed from the host computer. The
correct password must be supplied to the hard drive in order to access user data. Both
the User and Master Password features are supported, along with the High and Maximum
security modes. The Master Password Revision code is also supported. This feature
varies by drive configuration and may not be available on all configurations.
Automatic Acoustic Management (AAM) — The drive supports the Automatic
Acoustic Management feature. This feature allows the host to select the acoustic level of
the hard drive.
2679-701211-A06 RELEASED 10/21/10 (WD CONFIDENTIAL) 3