KR100251922B1 - Parallel connection method of hdd with a.t. interface cable - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A method for connecting a hard disk drive in parallel through the AT interface cable is provided to overcome a restriction of a drive on the AT drive. CONSTITUTION: A drive '0' and a drive '1' are connected to a host(10) by separating the drive '0' and the drive '1' into a plurality of lower drives(16¯26) through an AT interface cable AIC. The drive '0' comprises a lower drive '00'(16), a lower drive '01'(18) and a lower drive '02'(20). The drive '1' comprises a lower drive '10'(22), a lower drive '11'(24) and a lower drive '12'(26). Precedence conditions must be attended for selecting a specific lower drive out of a plurality of lower drives. The precedence conditions are described as follows. Two bits(1d0, 1d1) out of bit information of a drive/head register currently reserved through 1f6th address of an input/output connector must be used. Two jumpers are necessary for setting the one's lower drive ID information in the drive(0,1). A device driver is necessary for setting lower drive selection information(1d0, 1d1) according to a logic block address of an interrupt 13 in BIOS.

Description

a. Parallel connection of hard disk drives via tee interface cable.

1 is a connection state showing a connection state between the host and the drive through the conventional AT interface cable.

2 is a connection state showing a parallel connection between a host and a plurality of drives through the AT interface cable according to the present invention.

3 is a data format diagram of a drive / head register for selecting a specific drive among a plurality of drives as an embodiment of the present invention.

The present invention relates to an interface of a hard disk drive, and more particularly, to a hard disk drive parallel connection method capable of increasing the capacity of a hard disk drive through an AT interface cable.

Typically, the AT interface between the hard disk drive and the host consists of a 40-pin input / output connector and a 4-pin power terminal on the interface with the host. The ATA interface also consists of a single host or host adapter and one or two drives, each of which is daisy-chained. Hereinafter, the problem of the AT interface connecting the host and the drive through the conventional AT interface cable will be described with reference to FIG. 1.

1 shows a connection between a host and two drives through an AT interface cable. 1 and 12 are connected to the host 10 through a 40-pin input / output connector. There are two problems on the AT interface in this case. The first problem is that you cannot use more than one drive on the AT interface. This entails a limitation on the overall capacity of the hard disk drive system. The second problem is that the IDE does not allow access to more than 528 bytes. However, the second problem has recently been overcome by the enactment of Enhanced ATA. However, enhanced ATA can support up to 8.4Gbytes of AT drivers. The problem here is that more than two AT drives can be used. In other words, even though the user has several AT drives and the total capacity of the drives does not exceed 8.4 GBytes, the number of drives is limited and the rest of the drives cannot be used.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a parallel connection method of a hard disk drive that can overcome the limitation of the drive on the AT drive.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description, numerous specific details such as the number of drives connected in parallel, the bit information of a drive / head register, etc. are shown to provide a more general understanding of the invention. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without these specific details. And detailed descriptions of well-known functions and configurations that may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention will be omitted.

2 shows a parallel connection between a host and a plurality of drives through an AT interface cable AIC according to the present invention. Firstly, the AT drive drives the host Only two drives can be mounted.

However, the parallel connection method of the hard disk drive according to the present invention is a drive as shown in FIG. The drive 1 is divided into a plurality of lower drives 16-26 and connected to the host 10 through the AT interface cable AIC. Drive Side drive sub 16 and sub drive 1 (18) and subdrive 2 (20), and drive 1 side is lower drive 1 And a lower drive 11 (24) and a lower drive 12 (26). In this case, in order to select a specific subordinate drive among a plurality of subordinate drives, the following prerequisite must be accompanied.

First, two bits (1d) of bit information of the drive / head register currently reserved through address 1f6 of the input / output connector. 1d1) Information shall be used. This will be described with reference to FIG. 3. 3 is a diagram illustrating a data format of a drive / head register for selecting a specific drive and a lower drive among a plurality of lower drives according to an embodiment of the present invention. The drive / head register is composed of 8 bits, and each bit stores bit information for selecting the drive Drv and the head. HS in Figure 3 HS3 indicates head select information and Drv drives Or 1d each indicating information for selecting drive 1 , 1d1 is the drive ( , Information to select the lower drive among 1). Accordingly, the final lower drive selected according to the bit information of the drive / head register is shown in Table 1 below.

TABLE 1

Second, drive ( There should be 2 jumpers to set ID of own subordinate drive in 1).

Third, lower drive selection information 1d by LBA (Logic Block Address) in interrupt 13 of BIOS You must have a device driver that can set 1d1. Hereinafter, a method of selectively operating a hard disk drive connected in parallel with a host through an AT interface cable will be described.

First, the operation principle of the host side, as the first step, the host initializes the drive counter, the total LBA and each drive, and then uses the diagnostic command to drive the drive. , Subdrive within 1 ( - 2, 1 -12) Scan. The host then scans the number of lower drives connected to the AT interface cable. Then, as a second step, the host uses an identify command to identify each subdrive ( - 2, 1 -12) and calculate the capacity of each subdrive ( - 2, 1 Parameter boundary and total access function subdrive (-12) - 2, 1 -12) Calculate the parameter. Total accessible child drives calculated after - 2, 1 -12) the value of the parameter for each drive ( 1) Write to the maintenance cylinder area in the master lower drive in 1). Thereafter, as a third step, the host calculates the LBA value at the time of the data input / output command, determines which subordinate drive to select, and sends the data input / output command to the target lower drive. For example drive in Figure 2 Subdrive of To When the start LBA value and the last LBA value of 2) are shown in (Table 2),

TABLE 2

The calculated LBA value from the host is 105 If the sub-drive as shown in Table 2 above 1 is selected.

On the other hand, referring to the operation of the lower drive side selected by the LBA value calculated from the host, when a command is received from the host as the first step, 1d of the bit information of the drive / head register is responded to. And 1d1 to check whether the current ID is its own, and 1d of the bit information of the drive / head register as a result of the check. When 1d1 and 1d1 match their current ID, the LBA calculated by the host is added to the start LBA, and the data read and write control is performed using the absolute LBA.

As described above, the present invention can double the capacity of the hard disk drive system by selecting a specific drive among a plurality of drives connected in parallel using 2-bit information of the drive / head register without additional hardware configuration. have.

Claims (3)

a. In a method of connecting a host and a plurality of drives in parallel via a tee interface cable, A drive scanning step for scanning the plurality of drives; A parameter calculation step of calculating the plurality of drive capacities and respective parameter thresholds and parameters of the totally accessible drive; Writing the parameter values of the total accessible drive calculated in the calculation step in a maintenance area of a master drive of the plurality of drives; A method for parallel connection of a hard disk drive through an AT interface cable, comprising: selecting a drive corresponding to an LBA value and transmitting a data input / output command during a data input / output command. The drive of claim 1 wherein the drive selected by the LBA value calculated from the host is: In response to receiving a data input / output command from the host, in response to the bit input / output of the drive / head register, it is checked whether the current ID is its own. A method of parallel connection of a hard disk drive through an AT interface cable, characterized by subtracting its own start LBA from the LBA calculated in the following. [4] The AT interface cable of claim 2, wherein the drive selected by the LBA value calculated by the host compares two bits of drive selection information among the bit information of the drive / head register with its ID information. Parallel connection of hard disk drives.