5.3.5. /proc/ide/

This directory contains information about IDE devices on the system. Each IDE channel is represented as a separate directory, such as /proc/ide/ide0 and /proc/ide/ide1. In addition, a drivers file is available, providing the version number of the various drivers used on the IDE channels:
ide-floppy version 0.99.newide
ide-cdrom version 4.61
ide-disk version 1.18
Many chipsets also provide a file in this directory with additional data concerning the drives connected through the channels. For example, a generic Intel PIIX4 Ultra 33 chipset produces the /proc/ide/piix file which reveals whether DMA or UDMA is enabled for the devices on the IDE channels:



                              Intel PIIX4 Ultra 33 Chipset.
------------- Primary Channel ---------------- Secondary Channel -------------
                 enabled                          enabled
------------- drive0 --------- drive1 -------- drive0 ---------- drive1 ------
DMA enabled:    yes              no              yes               no 
UDMA enabled:   yes              no              no                no 
UDMA enabled:   2                X               X                 X
UDMA
DMA
PIO
Navigating into the directory for an IDE channel, such as ide0, provides additional information. The channel file provides the channel number, while the model identifies the bus type for the channel (such as pci).

5.3.5.1. Device Directories

Within each IDE channel directory is a device directory. The name of the device directory corresponds to the drive letter in the /dev/ directory. For instance, the first IDE drive on ide0 would be hda.

Note

There is a symbolic link to each of these device directories in the /proc/ide/ directory.
Each device directory contains a collection of information and statistics. The contents of these directories vary according to the type of device connected. Some of the more useful files common to many devices include:
  • cache — The device cache.
  • capacity — The capacity of the device, in 512 byte blocks.
  • driver — The driver and version used to control the device.
  • geometry — The physical and logical geometry of the device.
  • media — The type of device, such as a disk.
  • model — The model name or number of the device.
  • settings — A collection of current device parameters. This file usually contains quite a bit of useful, technical information. A sample settings file for a standard IDE hard disk looks similar to the following:
    name                value          min          max          mode
    ----                -----          ---          ---          ----
    acoustic            0              0            254          rw
    address             0              0            2            rw
    bios_cyl            38752          0            65535        rw
    bios_head           16             0            255          rw
    bios_sect           63             0            63           rw
    bswap               0              0            1            r
    current_speed       68             0            70           rw
    failures            0              0            65535        rw
    init_speed          68             0            70           rw
    io_32bit            0              0            3            rw
    keepsettings        0              0            1            rw
    lun                 0              0            7            rw
    max_failures        1              0            65535        rw
    multcount           16             0            16           rw
    nice1               1              0            1            rw
    nowerr              0              0            1            rw
    number              0              0            3            rw
    pio_mode            write-only     0            255          w
    unmaskirq           0              0            1            rw
    using_dma           1              0            1            rw
    wcache              1              0            1            rw