[geeks] SATA Drives and Delay Start

[Sridhar Ayengar]

Jochen Kunz wrote:
> On Wed, 05 Mar 2008 17:27:06 -0500
> Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ok.  I checked, and my controller, the Highpoint RocketRAID 2320,
>> supports staggered spin, but I don't understand how it stops the
>> drives  from spinning up if it hasn't yet booted its own firmware.
> Pin 11 on the SATA power plug is staggered spinup. The drive starts
> immediately on power up if pin 11 is tied to GND. If not the drive
> starts when the controller initializes the drive. It is possible to
> connect an activity LED to pin 11 if staggered spinup is used. Not
> all drives support staggered spinup.
> 
> RTFWP: (Read The F* WikiPedia ;-) )
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_ATA
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staggered_spinup

I've read both of those articles, but I'm still confused.  The SATA 
power connector to which the drives will be attached are coming directly 
from the power supply.  I don't see a way of attaching a SATA pwoer cord 
to the controller, and, in any case, I doubt the controller would be 
capable of gating that much power.

Peace...  Sridhar