Mass storage

Mass storage

General

• Consequences of a major hard disk failure, and attempts to recover his valuable data
• Disk drives at 40: Lean, mean storage machines - disk drive may have turned 40 this year, but you won't find symptoms of middle age creeping up on this all-star performer
• Disk drive power connectors in PCs
• Harddisks and controllers dictionary
• How Hard Disk Works
• References to compagnies that offer storage solutions like A/V harddrives, disk arrays or removeables - from Desktop Video Links
• Storage Review - hard disk tests, information of harddisk products
• Technicians' Guide To PC Hard Disk Subsystems

Hard disk technical specifications

• TheRef - information collection of hard disks and controllers
• The Tech Page from Blue Planet Corporation - Jumpers and Specifications for Every Drive Ever Made
• PC-DISK - escriptions about over 5,000 harddisks, jumpersettings and layouts
• TheRef - storage devices and controller hardware specs at your fingertips

SCSI

For more than a decade, SCSI has remained the peripheral interface of choice for desktop, workstation, and server environments. Much of that success can be attributed to designers' ability to bring the interface to continually higher performance levels while maintaining its backward compatibility with legacy systems and devices.

• Adaptec 1540/1542 manuals and drivers - very popular ISA bus SCSI controller
• Adaptec SCSI controller information at ftp.funet.fi - information on older Adaptec SCSI controllers
• All About SCSI - SCSI general information
• SCSI-based RAID systems provide storage redundancy, enhance data-transfer rate - RAID systems for PCs can greatly increase storage MTBF, accelerate read/write data-transfer rates, or bot
• SCSI Connector Contact Assignments
• SCSI Documents at ftp.funet.fi - periodic posting of information archive
• SCSI evolves to meet changing, challenging demands of small computers - SCSI advances have met the high-speed challenge head-on
• SCSI Trade Association (STA) - white papers, links to SCSI vendors, market information
• comp.periphs.SCSI FAQ
• Coping with SCSI at gigahertz speeds - as data rates push SCSI bandwidth into the gigahertz region, propagation delay, reflections, and crosstalk gang up to sabotage signal integrity

IDE/ATA

Short history: 1985 Compaq designed a hard disk drive that included its own controller (Western Digital) *at the drive* rather than have the drive's electronics on the interface card or on the motherboard. This was termed IDE (Integrated Drive Electronics) and created a device-independent drive, greatly simplifying ISA-bus interface.

General information

• ATA-ATAPI.COM - ATA and ATAPI Information and Software
• Bus Master DMA Drivers - Just an Illusion - Bus Master DMA Drivers from Intel and Others Are Falsely Inflating Benchmark Results
• IDE disk drive info program with C source - runs under DOS, it might be a good idea to get newest version 2.1

Technical specifications

• ATA (AT Attachment) Rev 3.2
• ATA-3r6 command and hardware specification - in MSWord 6 format
• ATAPI-2r6 command specification - in Postscript format
• ATAPI (re-)writable command specification extension (by Philips) - in pdf format
• ATA-3 X3T10 Working Draft version 6 - draft version of IDE standard, zipped Word document

Floppy disc

• High Capacity Floppy Formatter - for DOS

Removable mass storage

• Iomega Jaz - 1G removable disk
• Iomega Zip Drive - 100M disk drive
• Superdisk - Imation LS-120 disk drive which can handle normal 3.5" diskettes and 120M special diskettes, earlier know also as LS-120

Backup medias

• Iomega Ditto
• PC streamers control article (Russian) + C examples
• The firmware page - formware updates for DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, CD-R and DAT devices

CD-ROM

General

• alt.cd-rom FAQ - CD-ROM frequenly asked questions and answers
• CD/ROM -- An extension of the CD audio standard - some lecture material on CDROM technique
• ATA-ATAPI.COM - TA and ATAPI Information and Software
• CD-ROM Shopper's Guide

Audio CDs and CDROM drives

• CD Rippers at MP3.COM - programs to read audio CDs on CD-ROM drive and information what CD-ROM drives work on this
• CD-ROM Digital Audio (CD-DA) introduction
• DAE Speed - digital audio extraction speed and quality is very important if you're using your CD-ROM drive in combination with a writer
• Exact Audio Copy - audio grabber software for CD-ROM drives
• Slow Speed CD Transcriber - A new way to slow down the speed of music in real-time without changing the pitch!
• Windows and Red Book Audio - information on reading audio CDs using CD-ROM

CD-R

• Andy McFadden's CD-Recordable FAQ
• CDR Identifier - This little tool lets you read the ATIP (Absolute Time In Pre-Groove) of CDR (CD-Recordable) media with most of the current CDR recorders. This information tells the real manufacturer and type of dye used for this media.
• CDROM Recording Software - freeware CDR recording software and firmware upgrades
• CD-R Quality Report
• OS/2 Warp and (HP) CD Writers F.A.Q.
• Resources for CD-R and Stereo Pairs - software and information in support of CD recording
• Twelve steps to make a DVD-Compliant mini-DVD

Making audio CDs

• Exact Audio Copy - audio grabber software for CD-ROM drives, runs in WIndows 95 and NT with SCSI and ATAPI CD-ROM drives
• Recording your own CD-R's
• Transferring LPs to CDR: Some Advice

CD-RW

• cd-rw.org - CD-RW disk information
• UDF Readers - enable MultiRead CD-ROM drives to read UDF formatted CD-R and CD-RW discs (such as discs written with DirectCD, and DVD titles) under Windows 95 and Mac OS

Technical info

• ATAPI (IDE) CDROM drives specification - postscript file
• AT Attachment Packet Interface Standards - archive at Kiarchive
• CD-ROM audio connectors - how to connect your CD-ROM output to your soundcard succesfully
• CD Rom Back Panel - which connector there is for what
• CD-ROM Programming FAQ Version 1.03
• CD-ROM Programming FAQ Version 2.00a
• Collection of ATAPI news articles - note that this is large text file, almost 3 megabytes
• ECMA-130 Standard - Data Interchange on Read-only 120 mm Optical Data Disks (CD-ROM)
• Interfacing to Panasonic CD-Roms - details the basic interface to Panasonic/Matsushita/Kotobuki CD-Roms that normally connect to a PC soundcard with a 40 pin IDC cable, old proprietary interface
• MiniDisc DIGITAL Recording FAQ - includes information on CD-ROM S/PDIF output connector
• Technical Committee T13 AT Attachment - includes project documents and many standard draft versions

Interresting software

• Slow Speed CD Transcriber - read audio from CD digitally and can control the music playback speed, can adjust music pitch
• The firmware page - formware updates for DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, CD-R and DAT devices

DVD-ROM

• The firmware page - formware updates for DVD-ROM, CD-ROM, CD-R and DAT devices