Specifications

12 Hawk 2XL Product Manual, Rev. B
The following is a simplified description of a read operation with cache operation enabled:
Case A - A Read command is received and the first logical block (LB) is already in cache:
1. Drive transfers to the initiator the first LB requested plus all subsequent contiguous LB’s that are already in
the cache. This data may be in multiple segments.
2. When the requested LB is reached that is not in any cache segment, the drive fetches it and any remaining
requested LB’s from the disc and puts them in a segment of the cache. The drive transfers the remaining
requested LB’s from the cache to the host in accordance with the disconnect/reconnect specification men-
tioned above.
3. If the prefetch feature is enabled, refer to Section 4.5.2 for operation from this point.
Case B - A Read command requests data, the first LB of which is not in any segment of the cache:
1. The drive fetches the requested LB’s from the disc and transfers them into a segment, and from there to
the host in accordance with the disconnect/reconnect specification referred to in case A.
2. If the prefetch feature is enabled, refer to Section 4.5.2 for operation from this point.
Each buffer segment is actually a self-contained circular storage (wrap-around occurs), the length of which is
an integer number of disc medium sectors. The wrap-around capability of the individual segments greatly
enhances the buffer’s overall performance as a cache storage, allowing a wide range of user selectable config-
urations, which includes their use in the prefetch operation (if enabled), even when cache operation is disabled
(see Section 4.5.2). The number of segments may be selected using the Mode Select command, but the size
can not be directly selected. Size is selected only as a by-product of selecting the segment number specifica-
tion. The size in Kbytes of each segment is reported by the Mode Sense command page 08h, bytes 14 and 15.
If a size specification is sent by the host in a Mode Select command (bytes 14 and 15) no new segment size is
set up by the drive, and if the “STRICT” bit in Mode page 00h (byte 2, bit 1) is set to one, the drive responds as
it does for any attempt to change unchangeable parameters (see SCSI I/O Product Manual P/N 77738479).
The drive supports operation of any integer number of segments from 1 to 16.6
4.5.1 Caching write data
Write caching is a write operation by the drive that makes use of a drive buffer storage area where the data to
be written to the medium is stored in one or more segments while the drive performs the write command.
Write caching is enabled along with read caching. For write caching, the same buffer space and segmentation
is used as set up for read functions. The buffer segmentation scheme is set up or changed independently, hav-
ing nothing to do with whether or not read and write caching is enabled or disabled. When a write command is
issued, the cache is first checked to see if any logical blocks that are to be written are already stored in the
cache from a previous read or write command. If there are, the respective cache segments are cleared. The
new data is cached for subsequent Read commands.
If the number of write data logical blocks exceeds the size of the segment being written into when the end of
the segment is reached, the data is written into the beginning of the same cache segment, overwriting the data
that was written there at the beginning of the operation. However, the drive does not overwrite data that has
not yet been written to the medium.
Tables 8a and 8b show Mode default settings for the drives.
4.5.2 Prefetch operation
If the Prefetch feature is enabled, data in contiguous logical blocks on the disc immediately beyond that which
was requested by a Read command can be retrieved and stored in the buffer for immediate transfer from the
buffer to the host on subsequent Read commands that request those logical blocks (this is true even if “cache”
operation is disabled). Though the prefetch operation uses the buffer as a “cache”, finding the requested data
in the buffer is a prefetch “hit”, not a “cache” operation “hit”. Prefetch is enabled using Mode Select page 08h,
byte 12, bit 5 (Disable Read Ahead - DRA bit). DRA bit = 0 enables prefetch. Since data that is prefetched
replaces data already in some buffer segment(s), the host can limit the amount of prefetch data to optimize
system performance. The max prefetch field (bytes 8 and 9) limits the amount of prefetch. The drive does not
use the prefetch “ceiling” field (bytes 10 and 11).
During a prefetch operation, the drive crosses a cylinder boundary to fetch more data only if the Discontinuity
(DISC) bit is set to one in bit 4 of byte 2 of Mode parameters page 08h.
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