Hot Plugging Medalist Pro Disc Drives; S.m.a.r.t - Seagate ST34520N - Medalist 4.55 GB Hard Drive Product Manual

Medalist Pro Product Manual, Rev. D
5.2.6

Hot plugging Medalist Pro disc drives

The ANSI SPI-2 (T10/1142D) document defines the physical requirements for removal and insertion of SCSI
devices on the SCSI bus. Four cases are addressed. The cases are differentiated by the state of the SCSI bus
when the removal or insertion occurs.
Case 1 All bus devices powered off during removal or insertion
Case 2 RST signal asserted continuously during removal or insertion
Case 3 Current I/O processes not allowed during insertion or removal
Case 4 Current I/O process allowed during insertion or removal, except on the device being changed
Seagate Medalist Pro disc drives support four hot plugging cases. Provision shall be made by the system such
that a device being inserted makes power and ground connections prior to the connection of any device signal
contact to the bus. A device being removed shall maintain power and ground connections after the disconnec-
tion of any device signal contact from the bus (see SFF-8046, SCA-2 specification).
It is the responsibility of the systems integrator to assure that no hazards from temperature, energy, voltage, or
ESD potential are presented during the hot connect/disconnect operation.
All I/O processes for the SCSI device being inserted or removed shall be quiescent. All SCSI devices on the
bus shall have receivers that conform to the SPI-2 standard.
If the device being hot plugged uses single-ended (SE) drivers and the bus is currently operating in low voltage
differential (LVD) mode, then all I/O processes for all devices on the bus must be completed, and the bus qui-
esced, before attempting to hot plug. Following the insertion of the newly installed device, the SCSI host
adapter must issue a Bus Reset, followed by a synchronous transfer negotiation. Failure to perform the SCSI
Bus Reset could result in erroneous bus operations.
The SCSI bus termination and termination power source shall be external to the device being inserted or
removed.
End users should not mix devices with high voltage differential (HVD) drivers and receivers and devices with
SE, LVD, or multimode drivers and receivers on the same SCSI bus since the common mode voltages in the
HVD environment may not be controlled to safe levels for SE and LVD devices (see ANSI SPI-2).
The disc drive spindle must come to a complete stop prior to completely removing the drive from the cabinet
chassis. Use of the Stop Spindle command or partial withdrawal of the drive, enough to be disconnected from
the power source, prior to removal are methods for insuring that this requirement is met. During drive insertion,
care should be taken to avoid exceeding the limits stated in Section 6.4.4, "Shock and vibration," of this man-
ual.
5.2.7

S.M.A.R.T.

S.M.A.R.T. is an acronym for Self-Monitoring Analysis and Reporting Technology. This technology is intended
to recognize conditions that indicate imminent drive failure and is designed to provide sufficient warning of a
failure to allow you to back up the data before an actual failure occurs.
Note. The drive's firmware will monitor specific attributes for degradation over time but can't predict instanta-
neous drive failures.
Each monitored attribute has been selected to monitor a specific set of failure conditions in the operating per-
formance of the drive and the thresholds are optimized to minimize "false" and "failed" predictions.
Controling S.M.A.R.T.
The operating mode of S.M.A.R.T. is controlled by the DEXCPT and PERF bits on the Informational Exceptions
Control mode page (1Ch). Use the DEXCPT bit to enable or disable the S.M.A.R.T. feature. Setting the DEX-
CPT bit disables all S.M.A.R.T. functions. When enabled, S.M.A.R.T. collects on-line data as the drive performs
normal read and write operations. When the PERF bit is set, the drive is considered to be in "On-line Mode
Only" and will not perform off-line functions.
You can measure off-line attributes and force the drive to save the data by using the Rezero command. Forcing
S.M.A.R.T resets the timer so that the next scheduled interrupt is in two hours.
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