Product manual

Introduction
This manual describes the functional, mechanical and interface specifi-
cations for the Medalist
®
2132 hard disc drive. The drive is referred to
throughout this manual by its model number, ST32132A.
The ST32132A drive is designed to meet the needs of entry-level to
midrange desktop computers. It is a standard 3.5-inch form-factor drive
that features PRML recording technology, advanced transfer modes,
multiple block read/write, segmented cache, power management and
S.M.A.R.T. capabilities. The drive’s 2.1-Gbyte capacity provides ample
space to store large software programs and allows these programs to
run efficiently.
Fast ATA-3 performance is available on this drive. The Medalist 2132
supports advanced PIO modes 3 and 4 and advanced multiword DMA
modes 1 and 2 for burst transfer rates up to 16.6 Mbytes per second.
The drive supports multiple block read/write, which allows it to store
contiguous blocks of data in its 128-Kbyte segmented cache and to
transfer the blocks in a single burst.
The drive supports power-management modes for energy-efficient op-
eration. Power dissipation falls to 0.84W (typical) in Standby mode. The
drive enters power-saving modes at the request of the host. It can also
be programmed to automatically enter power-saving modes using the
Idle timer or Standby timer commands. The power-management modes
the drive supports are discussed in Section 1.7.1 on page 8. The
power-management commands the drive supports are listed in the
ATA-command table on page 25.
Medalist 2132 Product Manual, January 1997 1