[geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

[hike]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:

> Alois Hammer wrote:
> > IIRC, quality RAID controllers (3Ware, for instance) can perform this
> > feat.  Ask a salescritter to be sure.  If you wanted a cheap and easy
> > way, like setting a jumper?  Sorry.
>
> How can the controller tell the drive not to spin up if it spins when
> given power, even before the controller has booted its firmware?  Am I
> missing something?
>
> Peace...  Sridhar
> _______________________________________________
> GEEKS:  http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/geeks
>

Yes!

Some BIOSes had spinup/delay setting back in the IDE/ATA-only days.
As the hard drive speeds improved, they could be ready before the BIOS
completed loading and Windows would refuse to start.
Adding the delay permitted Windows to load after the BIOS completed its
tasks.
An additional benefit was that IDE/ATA drives could also have a staggered
startup to reduce the initial load on a power supply.
Back in those days, I used Tyan and Asus motherboards at home.
How the BIOS handled the delay (voltage delayed?), I don't know.