Seagate Medalist ST3636A Product Manual page 92

Chapter 9
LBA (Logical block address) - This term defines the addressing of the device
as being by the linear mapping of sectors.
Master - The device which is accessed when the DEV bit of the Drive/Head
register is equal to zero. A hard drive addressed as master on the primary IDE
port of a system is typically designated drive "C" by PC operating systems.
MIG (Head) - Metal in Gap (MIG) heads are read/write heads constructed using
a coil of wire around a ferrite core with a gap that generates the field which
changes the magnetic flux of the medium during a write process and which
focuses the magnetic field during the read process. A small amount of high
permeability metal is placed on the ferrite near the gap to increase the ability to
carry magnetic flux during the write process.
Optional - This term describes features which are not required by the ATA
standard.
PIO (Programmed input/output) - A means of accessing device registers.
PIO is also used to describe one form of data transfers. PIO data transfers are
performed by the host processor utilizing PIO register accesses to the Data
register.
Reserved - Reserved bits, bytes, words, fields and code values are set aside for
future standardization. Their use and interpretation may be specified by future
extensions to this or other standards.
Sector - A uniquely addressable set of 256 words (512 bytes).
Slave - The device which is accessed when the DEV bit of the Drive/Head
register is equal to one. A hard drive addressed as master on the primary IDE
port of a system is typically designated drive "D" by PC operating systems.
S.M.A.R.T. - Self-monitoring, analysis, and reporting technology for prediction
of device degradation and/or faults.
Track, physical - An ordered set of sectors that can be accessed when the
actuator is held stationary and the disk is rotated one complete revolution.
Track, logical - A mapping of sectors on the disk drive into an imaginary track
of a disk for purposes of achieving compatibility with legacy addressing
schemes.
Unrecoverable error - An unrecoverable error is defined as having occurred
at any point when the device sets either the ERR bit to one and the BSY bit to
zero in the Status register when processing a command.
VS (Vendor specific) - This term is used to describe bits, bytes, fields and code
values which are reserved for vendor specific purposes. These bits, bytes, fields
and code values are not described in the ATA standard, and may vary among
vendors. This term is also applied to levels of functionality whose definition is
left to the vendor.
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Glossary
ST3636A/ST31082A/ST31276A