Patent ID: 8516190
Filing Date: 2013-08-20
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of reporting logical sector alignment for an ATA mass storage device, comprising: determining that a first ATA mass storage device has been added to a system configured to be coupled to a plurality of ATA mass storage devices; determining a first logical sector alignment for the first ATA mass storage device, wherein the logical sector alignment is based on a quantity of logical sectors in a first physical sector that are available to store user data; determining an offset associated with the quantity of logical sectors in the first physical sector that are available to store user data; configuring metadata stored in the first ATA mass storage device to store the offset, wherein the offset is applied to all accesses of the first ATA mass storage device; reporting a value of zero as the logical sector alignment to an operating system for the first ATA mass storage device; determining a maximum physical sector size of a first physical sector size that is reported by the first ATA mass storage device and a second physical sector size that is reported by a second ATA mass storage device, wherein the first ATA mass storage device is configured with the second ATA mass storage device in a redundant array of independent disks (RAID) array that is represented to the operating system as a single mass storage device, and wherein the first physical sector size is different than the second physical sector size; and reporting the maximum physical sector size value to the operating system for the single mass storage device that is represented by the RAID array.