Parted & hdparm

[Patrick Leslie Polzer]

Parted will replace fdisk in the GNU operating system and maybe
will do the same in some Linux distributions in the future.
I just looked at hdparm, which most likely has the same status
as fdisk (linux-specific, maybe not GPL, maintenance unclear)
and offers a lot of useful information. Here's a dump:

address@hidden ~]% sudo hdparm -I /dev/hda

/dev/hda:

ATA device, with non-removable media
        Model Number:       ST3160023A
        Serial Number:      5JS2NX0R
        Firmware Revision:  3.06
Standards:
        Used: ATA/ATAPI-6 T13 1410D revision 2
        Supported: 6 5 4 3
Configuration:
        Logical         max     current
        cylinders       16383   65535
        heads           16      1
        sectors/track   63      63
        --
        CHS current addressable sectors:    4128705
        LBA    user addressable sectors:  268435455
        LBA48  user addressable sectors:  312581808
        device size with M = 1024*1024:      152627 MBytes
        device size with M = 1000*1000:      160041 MBytes (160 GB)
Capabilities:
        LBA, IORDY(can be disabled)
        bytes avail on r/w long: 4      Queue depth: 1
        Standby timer values: spec'd by Standard
        R/W multiple sector transfer: Max = 16  Current = 16
        Recommended acoustic management value: 128, current value: 0
        DMA: mdma0 mdma1 mdma2 udma0 udma1 udma2 udma3 udma4 *udma5
             Cycle time: min=120ns recommended=120ns
        PIO: pio0 pio1 pio2 pio3 pio4
             Cycle time: no flow control=240ns  IORDY flow control=120ns
Commands/features:
        Enabled Supported:
           *    READ BUFFER cmd
           *    WRITE BUFFER cmd
           *    Host Protected Area feature set
           *    Look-ahead
           *    Write cache
           *    Power Management feature set
                Security Mode feature set
           *    SMART feature set
           *    FLUSH CACHE EXT command
           *    Mandatory FLUSH CACHE command
           *    Device Configuration Overlay feature set
           *    48-bit Address feature set
                SET MAX security extension
           *    DOWNLOAD MICROCODE cmd
           *    SMART self-test
           *    SMART error logging
Security:
                supported
        not     enabled
        not     locked
        not     frozen
        not     expired: security count
        not     supported: enhanced erase
HW reset results:
        CBLID- above Vih
        Device num = 0 determined by the jumper
Checksum: correct

--

Why not, in the distant future, enhance Parted with an ability
to do this? Most of it seems to be part of ATA/ATAPI and Parted
already has a cross-arch framework.
Take into consideration that, after I submitted a plea for help
on Savannah, two people volunteered for developer. Maybe we
can divert some workforce on this, then.
Please tell me what you think!

Cheers,

Leslie

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