ATA device control via a packet-based interface

A method of operating a packet-to-ATA bridge, the method comprising:

• receiving a packet comprising an ATA command block from a remote host, the ATA command block comprising the ATA register accesses necessary to execute a given ATA register-delivered transaction;
• parsing the command block into a sequence of ATA register operations necessary to execute the given ATA register-delivered transaction;
• communicating with an ATA device attached to the bridge via an ATA interface to execute the sequence of ATA register operations on the ATA device;
• and
• when the given ATA register-delivered transaction requests the values for one or more registers on the ATA device, returning the register values to the host in packet format.

An apparatus comprising a packet-to-ATA bridge, the bridge comprising:

• a packet data interface to receive ATA register-delivered-command packets and data packets from a remote host, and to transmit data and status packets to the remote host;
• an ATA interface to transmit ATA bus host signals to an ATA device and receive ATA device signals from the device;
• buffer memory to buffer data between the packet data interface and the ATA interface;
• an ATA register protocol adapter connected to the ATA interface, the adapter capable of performing ATA register operations with an ATA device attached to the ATA signal interface;
• and
• an ATA command protocol adapter to parse a command packet into a sequence of ATA register operations and cause that sequence of operations to be performed by the ATA register protocol adapter.

An apparatus comprising a computer-readable medium containing computer instructions that, when executed, cause a processor or multiple communicating processors to perform a method for operating a packet-to-ATA bridging device, the method comprising:

• receiving a packet comprising an ATA command block from a remote host, the ATA command block comprising the ATA register accesses necessary to execute a given ATA register-delivered transaction;
• parsing the command block into a sequence of ATA register operations necessary to execute the given ATA register-delivered transaction;
• communicating with an ATA device attached to the bridge via an ATA interface to execute the sequence of ATA register operations on the ATA device;
• and
• when the given ATA register-delivered transaction requests the values for one or more registers on the ATA device, returning the register values to the host in packet format.