libATA is a

library A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...

used inside the Linux kernel to support ATA

host controller In computer hardware, a host controller, host adapter, or host bus adapter (HBA), connects a computer system bus, which acts as the host system, to other network and storage devices. The terms are primarily used to refer to devices for conne ...

s and devices. libATA provides an ATA driver

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

, class transports for ATA and ATAPI devices, and

SCSI / ATA Translation SCSI / ATA Translation (SAT) is a set of standards developed by the T10 subcommittee, defining how to communicate with ATA devices through a SCSI application layer. The standard attempts to be consistent with the SCSI architectural model, the ...

for ATA devices according to the T10 SAT specification. Features include

power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power st ...

, Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology, PATA/SATA, ATAPI, port multiplier,

hot swapping Hot swapping is the replacement or addition of components to a computer system without stopping, shutting down, or rebooting the system; hot plugging describes the addition of components only. Components which have such functionality are said ...

and

Native Command Queuing In computing, Native Command Queuing (NCQ) is an extension of the Serial ATA protocol allowing hard disk drives to internally optimize the order in which received read and write commands are executed. This can reduce the amount of unnecessary dri ...

References

External links

Linux ATA wiki

libATA feature table
AT Attachment Linux kernel {{compu-storage-stub